ATTRACTION
BY MADRIPOOR ROSE
Chapter Two
"How do you know how all these alien gizmos work, anyway? Like, how can you be sure we didn't just stick the chick in a cell, and put the other guys in hospital beds?" the young Johnny Storm asked his team leader.
"Given parallel evolution and the inescapable bounds of the laws of physics, it only requires a certain amount of intuitive logic."
I stared at him, jokingly. "I'm sorry, I thought I was fluent in English, but..."
Johnny snorted. "Don't sweat it, Pete, me and Benny need a secret decoder ring too."
"I get it," Logan said unexpectedly. "I don't know nothing about gunsmithing, but I can still fire a flintlock, Sig Sauer, Uzi, or one 'o'them ray guns aliens always got. A weapon is a weapon is a weapon, and all of 'em are gonna have a barrel and a trigger."
"Yes. Ah, quite."
Captain America had left orders for everyone to make their way toward the great dome in their explanations. We passed through great chambers of unknown purpose, finding fresh wonders around every corner.
One large gallery served as a hydroponic garden. Richards decided to stop and check it out. Before anyone could stop him, Logan picked an apple-like fruit and bit into the turquoise skin.
"Logan! We have no way of knowing if that fruit is poisonous!" Richards barked at him.
Logan swallowed. "Now you do. I got a healing factor, Doc, makes me damn near immortal. Been poisoned before. If I keel over, we know this stuff ain't fit for human consumption."
It made for a rather tense walk to the dome, as we watched Logan for signs of dropping in his tracks.
Once we had all reassembled in the dome's amphitheater, we found ourselves with three new recruits. Captain America introduced them. Spider-man was familiar from near daily appearances in the Daily Bugle. The young girl with white-streaked brown hair and wearing a hooded coat and gloves---had she been taken in winter, then? Had yet more months passed on Earth?---was Rogue, and the man in the biker's black leather with a visor surgically implanted over his eyes was Cyclops.
Once they had been seated, Spider-man making several acrobatic leaps and jumps to reach the highest row, the captain addressed us.
"We've won the first skirmish, but not the war," he neatly laid out his plans.
After our fliers had rested, they needed to return to their scouting. He wanted a search pattern of concentric circles spreading out from our city.
"We'll need guards posted at the four compass points, until our recon team locates the enemy position," he continued. "We'll need to settle on our living quarters, and collect food and water from the parts of the city where that's available, and evaluate rationing..."
Several people volunteered for the various duties, and left. I approached the captain, where he was talking to Richards, Lehnsherr, Xavier, and Iron Man about looking for weaponry, or perhaps a ship. This city was extraordinarily advanced, and empty. Perhaps by the Beyonder's hand, or perhaps the citizens had taken to space, and might have left a surplus vessel. Faint hope, but better than none.
"What is it, son?" Captain America broke off the conversation as I approached.
"Sir, my name is Peter Rasputin. I'm an agent with the Federal Security Bureau. I'm something of an expert on infiltration and information-gathering."
He nodded, catching my drift. "Once we locate the enemy, you're volunteering for espionage."
Erik Lehnsherr raised an eyebrow.
"Yes sir. And I thought you should be aware of all possible assets in contingency planning."
"Good man. I'll keep that in mind. Why don't you join one of the foraging parties for now, they could use the muscle." Captain America dismissed me with a firm nod, then hesitated. "Rasputin? Any relation to..."
I smiled thinly, the time-worn quip about the Mad Monk on the tip of my tongue.
"...Andrei Grigorivitch? Lieutenant in the Red Guard flying squadron?"
And I suddenly remembered that this man who looked no older than me had fought in the Great Patriotic War. What Americans call World War Two.
"My grandfather, sir."
"Blood tells." His smile was warmer and wider. "Andy and I got into some scrapes on the wrong side of the Stalingrad line, back in the day. Things settle down, you and I'll sit down, I have some stories to tell," he offered.
"I would appreciate that, sir," and I went off to join the food gathering crew in a thoughtful mood.
Days passed. Our diet was monotonous. There was the fruit from the hydroponic garden, and in a storeroom was discovered crates of MREs the Beyonder had somehow appropriated from the US military. It did seem he wished to provide for us, to find more entertainment in our battles and struggles than in watching us slowly starve and fade.
Our enemies occupied a similar city several hundred miles away.
We had little respite, and I never did get to have that talk with Captain America. With so few of us, the prospect of guarding and fully exploring the city had to be taken in shifts. We were settling down into a routine when a flaming 4 appeared in the sky over a city tower that held the power generator.
Cyclops was responsible for trying to tamper with the generator. To my surprise, almost the full fury of his attack was directed at me, as he ranted incoherently about sinister intentions, marauders, and unnervingly seemed to believe that I was sleeping with Jean Grey, screaming that she'd been promised to him.
None of us had mentioned our young Phoenix since arriving here.
Despite our best efforts, he took Janet Van Dyne hostage and made his escape. The Avengers were quite subdued over the next day as we plotted her rescue.
"Marauders," Logan grunted as we shared a meal. "I heard of 'em. Hate crime group with a twist, mutant on mutant. Vic's with 'em," he added in an aside to Mystique.
"Sabey-baby? What did I ever see in that thug?" she sighed.
"Supposed to follow a guy named Essex. Practical Darwinists with guns."
Professor Xavier cleared his throat. "Ah, yes. Nathaniel Essex. A geneticist with some odd theories on evolution and mutation. A dangerous man, indeed."
The Wolverine popped a claw out and used it to slice one of the not apples from the hydroponic garden, explaining to the rest of us, "guy has a list of characteristics for mutants. Human appearance, strength, useful powers, et cetera and so on. You don't got enough items checked off on his list, he sends his Marauders to kill you. Thinks he's in charge of cleaning the gene pool."
"I must say," Professor Lehnsherr added slowly, "that I find our young Marauder's interest in Jean, and in Peter here, deeply disturbing."
There was a moment of silence. Jean. Lehnsherr's wife Gabrielle. Doctor McCoy. Sage. Kitty.
The Good Shepherd Clinic in Raven's Rock Vermont was not undefended. It was, after all, a government thinktank.
Yet.
Until now, our greatest worries had been how we would survive and escape this gameboard of a world the Beyonder had transported us to. Now, we all worried about our loved ones left behind, facing such danger in our absence.
We didn't have the luxury of worrying for long. The Thing found himself mysteriously transformed back to human form. The betrayal by Cyclops led to metahuman mistrust, angry looks, the word mutant whispered as one of us passed, the description becoming a slur by tone of voice.
Must it ever be so? That normal men---and even those not so normal---fear and hate us because we are mutants?
As if to provide atmosphere to the darkening mood and division among our company, it began to pour. Huge storms, with rolling thunder and flashes of lightning, hurricane winds and torrential rain. Thor did what he could to clear the skies, but it seemed to be the beginning of the rainy season. This patchwork planet's weather systems finally rebelling against the violence of its birth.
The river and waterfall that ran by our base of operations began to rise, flooding its banks, and a large boulder came down toward the dome, destroyed at the last moment by a blow from Thor's hammer.
One disaster averted. In vain. As dawn broke, the storm faded, and our enemies struck once again, crashing a large airship into the city. It was similar to the one we had just found, operated telepathically. But they did not use it as a mode of transport.
They used it for a missile.
We fought, and this time I made a better accounting of myself, but we were overwhelmed, and outnumbered, and all too soon Captain America ordered us to scatter, retreat and regroup later.
We fled in the ship we had found, piloted by Professor Xavier. Our little group of mutants. The girl, Rogue, had joined us. Mystique had adopted her, taken her under her wing.
Xavier outlined his plan. He had been in telepathic communication with Cyclops, and we were joining him, in the hope of turning him to our cause, and rescuing the Wasp.
It was his bigoted hatred for non-mutants and his absurd jealousy of me that led to his act of sabotage. Regardless of ideology, the boy's powerful force blasts were a weapon we wanted on our side.
"Sounds good, Chuck," Logan snorted. "But what makes you think you can turn a kid so crazy from hate to the side of the angels?"
Lehnsherr said quietly, "because he's done it before." The old friends shared a look, and Lehnsherr went on. "I was angry, after the war. Charles and Gabrielle stopped me from doing something very stupid. Killing a man."
Softly, almost inaudibly, he added, "I suspect our lives would have been very different indeed, had I not listened."
We joined Cyclops at his base. After hearing about the attack, Janet Van Dyne decided to go search out the others, shrank to become the Wasp, and flew off.
"Slay your enemies and all you desire shall be yours!" Cyclops quoted. "That means the flatscan trash and those freaks who chose to imitate our birthright."
We were forced to listen to this drivel for several hours, before choosing rooms and retiring for the night. This edifice was from yet another alien world, curves and angles in the design and odd furnishings. I found a low, unpadded cot with a square of softer, sculpted material, like eggcrate foam. For all I knew it was a coffee table, but it was dark, and quiet, and large enough. I've slept in less comfortable environs. I reclined, not bothering to take my boots off, and let my thoughts turn to Kitty.
At home...strange to think of the thinktank as home, instead of the farm...I would be laying awake waiting for her to come to bed. Now I lay awake on an alien world, countless light years from Earth, with no way of returning...no hope of ever seeing her again.
No. I held the image of her in my mind. Eyes sparkling, mouth quirked in an impish smile. Kitty was sweet, funny, both innocent and wise beyond her years, so very beautiful... I loved her.
Slay your enemies and all you desire shall be yours.
I looked into my heart, and asked what it was I desired.
Wealth? Fame? Power?
I did not doubt the Beyonder's power. If I played this game and won...slew my enemies...I could rule the world. Have my paintings hung in the greatest museums and galleries.
Whatever I desired.
A simple house, with enough land for a garden and a dog to run. Kitty. Illyana. And perhaps a little boy with Kitty's eyes and impish smile.
Slay your enemies.
I've killed before. I've shot men from rooftops, and in hand to hand combat. Unnumbered deaths on my hands...the spy thrillers gloss over collateral damage. Innocent people caught in car chases and crashes. Guards hit just a little too hard. That unlucky percentage allergic to knock out gas. Minions executed by their masters because Natasha and I escaped, escaped with the plans, the prototype, the hostage.
I had settled down with my desk job at Xavier's, happy to be out of the field and that that dark phase of my life was over.
But for Kitty? For the chance to return to her? For happily ever after?
Slay your enemies. Anyone who stands between me and my Kitty is my enemy. On these troubling thoughts, I managed a few hours of fitful sleep before Xavier roused us all with a telepathic summons. The image of a spaceship, unbelievably vast.
"I have gleaned this information from Reed Richards' thoughts. What you see is the home of Galactus. A solar system sized mechanical construct. He has apparently summoned it here for reasons not yet clear."
Cyclops muttered, "If I hadn't seen the Beyonder destroy an entire galaxy, I wouldn't believe this...but now...I guess it's getting easier to accept the impossible." He looked shaken. Such a crack in his worldview would give Professor Xavier something to work with in his rehabilitation.
"What are we going to do?" the girl, Rogue asked, wide-eyed. Mystique put a motherly hand on her shoulder, reassuring her.
"Rogue, you and the others will go now and prepare the ship! We may have to move quickly against Galactus, if, as Xavier and I fear, this event foreshadows hostile action. In the meantime, Xavier and I shall try a more subtle approach."
"Since when do you give us orders?" Cyclops sneered, mostly out of habit, for he turned and followed us to the hangar bay anyway.
Xavier's attempt to contact and reason with the planet-eater only woke Galactus from his daze. It was decided we should rejoin the others---safety in numbers. Cyclops seethed at the thought of joining forces with the lesser metahumans, but again backed down.
Xavier used his telepathy to locate the others...and when we arrived the heroes were under attack by the villains. The city had been abandoned after the attack, now the heroes were camped just outside a village of bewildered alien humanoids.
The battle raged through the village itself, sending villagers fleeing in terror, and I was in the heart of it. I had picked my target as we entered the fray, a vile man who deserved to die. I hoped that his death would count to the Beyonder and I would be returned home to my Kitty.
I needed her. Needed to take her in my arms and kiss her, tell her that I love her. Needed to tell her everything, trust her with my daughter, my secrets.
I was strangling Doctor Octopus with his own prosthetic appendages when an explosion of pain knocked me off of him. A member of the Wrecking Crew stood over me, crowbar raised. No ordinary tool...it felt like my ribs had broken, despite the fact that I wore steelform.
A blast of red light toppled my attacker. Through tears of agony, I saw Cyclops nod once, and turn away to face another foe. Pain swallowed me for a moment, and I knew nothing else.
I came back to myself with only a numb awareness that I was badly injured, and Xavier's voice inside my mind.
PETER. LAY STILL. YOUR RIBS ARE SHATTERED. ONE OF YOUR LUNGS WAS PUNCTURED AND A SHARD OF BONE IS DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO YOUR HEART. WE COULDN'T MOVE YOU WITHOUT KILLING YOU, BUT THERE IS A HEALER IN THE VILLAGE. ZSAJI. STAY WITH THEM UNTIL YOU ARE WELL. WE WILL REMAIN SEPARATE, A THIRD FORCE ALLIED WITH CAPTAIN AMERICA'S GROUP. IT SEEMS TACTICALLY PRUDENT.
YES, PROFESSOR. I WILL STAY HERE, I thought back. The phase tactically prudent carried layers of meaning. The infiltration and espionage skills I had offered Captain America would now be turned against him. Xavier needed to know how strong the anti-mutant sentiments ran in this group, after Cyclops showed his true colors.
Iron Man was running triage. He knelt beside me, and I managed to gasp the name of the healer. "zah-gee..."
"Hey Hotshot! We've got a badly wounded man over here! Can you get your medic girlfriend to take a look?"
I heard Johnny Storm's voice from behind us. "I'll try. But who knows if she can help a mutant? I mean, they're not exactly normal humans."
Iron Man was angry. Good. "Let me get this straight. A guy who can burst into flames has doubts that the alien chick faith healer can help a guy who turns into steel...because he's a mutant. Well. Thank god he ain't black," the sarcasm came through the armored suit's speakers clearly.
"That's not what I meant and you know it," the young Human Torch protested, moving into my line of sight with a young alien woman clinging to his arm.
She was exotically lovely, with a great mane of fine silver hair, large almond shaped amber eyes, the pupil slitted. Rounded curves wrapped in a purple kimono jacket as she kneeled beside me and said something in a musical language.
The block Professor Xavier had put on the pain receptors was fading. But when Zsaji touched me, even that lingering pain vanished, a sensation washed over me as soothing as a dip in a cool lake on a hot summer day.
Zsaji's touch. If her mere hand on my forearm felt like that...what would her hands caressing me be like? My hands, exploring that copper-tinged skin? Making love to her would be...would...
"What are you doing? Leave me alone..." I muttered, a nameless dread filling me. Something was wrong...something...I shouldn't...
She looked startled, and lifted her hand from my arm, turning questioningly to Johnny.
"It's okay, babe. He's delirious. Try again, give him another dose."
She crooned to me, comfortingly, in that liquid language that was sung rather than spoken and I remembered the myth of the sirens, the beautiful singing creatures that lured sailors to their doom.
She ran a hand through my hair, exclaiming at the color, and another wave of euphoria rolled through me. She moved both hands down to my crushed ribcage, and I lost myself in the heavenly sensation of her healing touch.
The treatment ended, and I watched her leave to attend to Spider-man. I found I could sit up a bit, the pain lessened to a dull ache deep in my bones.
Zsaji applied her hands and her powers to Spider-man's broken ankle, and he got to his feet.
Johnny swung her around happily. "Nice work, ladylove. You are terrific!"
"And she's gorgeous, too," Spider-man spoke admiringly. "That healing touch is better than a week in intensive care."
She was so very beautiful...and very much in love with the Human Torch. I watched them embrace, wondering why it troubled me so. My own loneliness? I missed...the girl at the clinic. Kitty, wasn't that her name? The girl who followed me around... Kitty, yes...
I watched Zsaji walk off into the village with Johnny Storm, willing her to come back, to come back and touch me again, to sit near me so I could gaze at that lovely face, into those mysterious golden eyes. She didn't even look back.
Iron Man helped me get out of the middle of the street, and then he and some of the aliens built a crude lean to for shelter. I lay back, taking shallow breaths against the piercing pain in my side, and watched as Captain America directed the efforts to clean up the aftermath of our battle.
Despite their own peril, the first concern of Captain America and his group was for the innocents affected by the war. I did not believe that any distrust remained. Johnny Storm spoke out of genuine concern that precious time would be lost if Zsaji tried and failed to treat my wounds, when there were other heroes with field medicine experience that could be fetched.
I watched She Hulk move debris from a crumpled hut, and wished I felt well enough to help her. I had been resting long enough to grow restless...nothing to read, nothing to draw with, only observing what I could see from my lean to. I've always been a poor patient.
I tentatively called out to Xavier with my mind, but got no response, and I wondered if they had returned to the mountain outpost Cyclops had claimed, or if they had found a new bolthole elsewhere.
I worried about Illyana...had my mother and father been informed that I was missing? Did they tell Illyana? I had been out of contact before, but now my daughter was old enough to notice that the cartoon-letters and small presents I sent had stopped coming.
I thought about Kitty, and tried to figure out what day it was on Earth. If she would be at college or back in Raven's Rock. I wondered if she'd given me up as dead, grieved, and moved on.
It had been so long...too long. I was starting to forget what Kitty looked like. I tried to picture her, hold her face in my mind's eye...but all I could see was Zsaji.
I shifted position, and couldn't resist a small yelp as fresh pain stabbed through me. One of the aliens working nearby called out, encouragingly and trotted off. Zsaji came a few moments later.
She smiled, and reached out to gently massage my chest. The pain faded and I relaxed, drifting again into that pleasant fog.
"Hello...I was just...I wanted to tell you, I think you're, whatever this is that you do makes me feel so much better..." I stammered like a schoolboy.
She trilled questioningly, and laid a hand on my forehead. It was hard to think clearly. I could only sleep briefly after one of her treatments, else the pain roused me. I was tired, and the relief brought by her touch sent my head swimming.
I gazed at her serene and exquisite face and told her, "Zsaji, I think you are the most beautiful, most wonderful woman I have ever met...and it is good that you speak no English or Russian, or you would think me a babbling fool."
She spoke again, running her fingers through my hair. The color seemed to fascinate her, all of the people of her village were platinum blond, and none of the heroes who went uncowled had hair as dark as mine.
I could lay there, basking in the light touch of her hands, gazing at her beautiful face, and listening to her speak her language that trilled like birdsong, for the rest of my life.
All too soon she gave my cheek a light caress, tracing the line of my jaw with her thumb, and got to her feet. I made a wordless sound of protest as she stepped out of the lean to and the Human Torch swooped down on her like a hawk.
He had extinguished the flame on his arms so he could safely gather her up and soar off.
They landed again, a few feet away, and I could hear Zsaji laughing merrily as the boy boasted.
"Well, you're right, babe. I'm not going to let you fall. Being as it might be the last few days of our existence, how about we go sneak off and make out by the waterfall?"
I turned my head so that I would not have to watch them walk off together, my mood darkening. What did she see in that arrogant childish boy? She was...she deserved better, a man who worshipped her. Someone like me...
Days passed. Professor Xavier did not contact me again, and my attempts to make telepathic contact failed. I began to wonder if the other X Men were dead.
The great ship of Galactus loomed threateningly overhead.
Zsaji visited me several times a day, but never for long enough. I tried to learn more of her language than her name, so that I could talk to her.
The Human Torch brought me food, and Johnny often stayed to eat with me. I found I could not be too jealous of the boy. He too had been healed by the beautiful alien girl, and when he spoke of Zsaji I could tell that his feelings for her were as strong as mine.
There was another attack on the village, and the villains tauntingly tossed the Wasp's body from their war machine as they passed through, firing weapons randomly. She'd been shot while patrolling.
The Avengers mourned the loss of their leader. I did not know her well, but she was good, and heroic, and a fellow mutant. I was feeling stronger, and so I got up and made my way to the hut where Janet Van Dyne's body was laid out awaiting burial. I wanted to pay my respects.
And I found Zsaji leaving the hut, face as pale as her hair, and crumpling to the ground in a dead faint.
I gathered her anxiously in my arms, found her breathing and heartbeat both weak, for humans, although what normal was for her species I did not know.
And then, from within the hut I heard a groan, and realized the truth. Zsaji had brought the Wasp back to life, and dangerously depleted herself to do so.
"Rest now, my beautiful, beloved Zsaji, I will care for you as you cared for me when I was injured. If I only had your powers..." I called out for help, for both Zsaji and Janet.
Some women of the village came, took in the situation, and led me to Zsaji's hut. I carried her there, and placed her gently on her bed, staying at her side.
The poor girl was as weak as a kitten. One of the women brought some broth, and I supported Zsaji, helping her sit up while the older lady fed her, spoonful by spoonful.
I slept on the floor of her hut that night, so that I would be near her if she cried out.
In the morning she seemed stronger, less fragile. That pleased me, but when I stepped outside to answer a call of nature...I saw a terrible sight.
The machine Galactus used to atomize a planet before consuming it, atop a nearby mesa.
The beginning of the end.
I glanced back at the hut, and then around the village. No. There may be nothing I can do but try, yet I must try to stop him. With a last look through the doorway at Zsaji's peacefully sleeping face, I transformed, my flesh becoming living steel, and I started for the mesa at a dead run.
Already I could see the other heroes attacking the device...and having little effect. Not even the explosion that plumed dust and smoke high in the air seemed to touch the planet-killer.
I reached the summit where the Avengers were trying to break the giant machine, avoiding the defensive drones and the bands of energy meant to tear this world apart and convert the mass to energy.
I could see the crater from the explosion I had witnessed, marring one of the foothills. Captain America shouted to me that the X Men had last been seen there, that I could go look for survivors. As much as I wanted to, I had to do my part in protecting Zsaji's village, so I stayed with the Avengers and other heroes until Iron Man got through Galactus' defense drones and damaged the machine.
At that moment, Reed Richards called a halt to our attack with a horrifying proposition. That we let Galactus destroy and devour this world. That we die. For if Galactus won the Beyonder's cruel contest...surely what he desired was an end to his hunger. Our deaths would save countless billions of worlds.
It made a sickening sense.
No sooner had Richards spoken, he vanished, taken aboard the great ship of Galactus by transporter beam. We waited, arguing the point. Nothing happened. Captain America gave the order to stand down and wait and see what Richards had to say on his return.
I went to the crater where the X Men had last been seen alive, and began to dig through the rubble. I had to duck as a red beam of light burst through a crack between boulders. Cyclops' force blasts. I began digging faster.
Soon a large slab of rock lifted into the air, and the girl, Rogue, came up underneath it, flying up.
"You're alive," I called out with relief.
She gave me a weak grin. "I reckon so."
Cyclops reached up from the hole beneath the slab, and I caught his hands and hauled him to the surface.
"When that drone exploded, Lehnsherr pulled a thick layer of rocks---ore deposits---on top of us for protection. You guys are good, I'll give you that," the young Marauder said enthusiastically.
"Of course. We're the good guys," Rogue chirped as she landed, and helped Xavier and Lehnsherr out of the hole, followed by Logan and Mystique.
"The blast still very nearly killed us," Xavier said quietly. "Captain America's people have returned to the village. We'll do the same."
Janet Van Dyne was up, talking to her fellow Avengers. As we entered the village square, Zsaji emerged from her hut. I breathed a sigh of relief to see her well and whole.
She ran to greet Johnny, who gave her a distracted kiss. Reed Richards had not yet returned, and the Human Torch was quite understandably worried that Galactus had not grabbed him for parley, but as an appetizer.
There was discussion of what to do next. Captain Marvel wanted to steal some ships from Doom's base and mount an assault on Galactus' worldship. Captain America wanted to wait longer and assess the situation. Loyal to the end, the Thing swore he'd follow Richards' last words and surrender.
I wanted to live, but looked to Xavier to give our group's official decision. And Richards was suddenly among us again, dropped down by a transporter beam.
Richards reported a confusing conversation with Galactus, but remained convinced that surrender was the right thing to do.
And so the three members of the Fantastic Four stayed behind as the rest of us went off in what might be a futile attempt to stop Galactus from destroying this world.
Unbeknownst to us, Doctor Doom had his own diabolical plan in play. We defeated Galactus, destroyed the machine...but it was no victory. The planet-eater used the machine to make it a little easier, but had no real need for it...and when we had proven we would deny him this world, he turned that inescapable hunger on his own ship. The ship dissolved into pure energy. Energy that was redirected to Doom's base.
And there, using more of the alien technology, Doom absorbed it. Becoming much more than mere metahuman. Deciding the Beyonder himself was his only equal and enemy, Doom went to confront our captor, opening a portal in space that would take him to his foe.
We all followed the stream of energy to Doom's base, but he had already left. Shockwaves from the battle came through the portal, shaking the ground and affecting the very fabric of space.
A piece of some strange alien device was wrenched loose from its moorings and fell from the wall, literally flattening Richards. His teammates hurried to his side. The Hulk had found a monitor station that displayed various areas of the planet. All showed scenes of devastation.
"Hulk, please, can you focus on the alien village?"
"Certainly." He adjusted the controls, and my heart sank.
The village was on fire, and I stared, numbly, as I spotted an older man carrying Zsaji. Blood dripped down her lovely face from a livid gash on her forehead.
I turned to where Johnny and the Thing were still bent over the prone figure of their teammate. "Johnny, I have bad news," I said gently. "Zsaji's been injured."
"Huh?' he said distractedly, cradling his brother-in-law's head in his lap. "Reed's hurt. I've got no time for a groupie now. I'll send her a card later."
"Groupie?" I breathed, dangerously. I think I might have killed the boy if another quake hadn't struck at that moment. A more violent quake.
Captain America ordered me, Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor, the largest and strongest of us, to brace the walls.
I gave the Torch another murderous look, and did so. How could he so callously speak of Zsaji? Zsaji who had saved our lives, who had healed the Wasp through it caused her great pain. Zsaji who even now may lay dying.
The quakes continued until it became obvious that staying would be madness. We released a number of the villains that Doom held captive, and tried to ride out the earthquakes on the empty plain.
It was the Hulk who said what all of us were thinking.
"This planet just might shake itself apart. And then where will we be?"
"Part o'that great driveway in the sky, I s'pose," the Thing answered.
The quakes stopped. A bright light shone in the sky. An orb of light, trailing star shaped rays.
"Be ready for anything," Captain America muttered, as the orb of light lowered to the ground before us, like a child's drawing of a setting sun.
The light faded...and there was Doom, silhouetted against the sky like a giant, like Galactus himself.
"This is going to be the fight of our lives," Captain America said grimly. "On my command, attack. And don't stop, don't let up, no matter what. We must find a way to win. We will find a way to win."
"Hold," Doom thundered, and suddenly stood before us, no larger than a normal man. "Let me return to human proportions so that we may speak more easily, face to face..." and with those words he removed the mask that concealed his features.
Everyone knew the story of the accident, and the disfiguring scars, but the face Doom now revealed was unmarred and pleasantly handsome.
"The Beyonder is no more, and I have been reborn. Thus have two evils come to an end. There is no enemy left to fight. The war is over."
Doom spoke briefly about his defeat of the Beyonder, and then disappeared as the ground shook once more. We did not know what to make of it, but later would learn that one of the villains, the powerful but meek Molecule Man, brought Doom to him.
It had been a very long day, and so it was decided that we would comandeer the habitable part of Doom's base for the night.
I could not sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, that glimpse of Zsaji, bleeding, filled my imagination. I had to see her! It was an ache in my heart, an emptiness in my soul. I had not felt this way with Natasha, or Kitty. This love of Zsaji consumed me. I had to be with her, or I would die.
I took a sky sled, and rushed back to the village, afraid of what I might find there. Dawn was almost breaking when I reached the village.
I stopped to gather some wildflowers before going to her hut, hoping I was not too late. That head wound. If she was still weakened from healing others...it may have been fatal.
They had managed to save the village. Only a few huts had been damaged by the earthquake, and the fire had engulfed only the hut where an oil lamp had tipped over, setting the spilled oil aflame.
She was sleeping peacefully, the gash on her forehead already gone. She stirred at my footstep, sitting up and calling out for him hopefully. "Jah-nee?" The name was like a knife in my heart.
I turned in the doorway, letting the moonslight catch my features before entering, crossing to her bedside, and kneeling to present the flowers.
"Tomorrow we might all die. I couldn't face that without trying to let you know how I feel."
She took the flowers, puzzled, it wasn't a custom among her people. She touched a velvet petal, and inhaled their scent. Her eyes softened, and she reached out and laid a hand along my cheek. I shivered at her touch, turning my head to plant a kiss in the palm of her hand.
She smiled, and said my name, as if seeing me for the first time. "P'tah," and leaned up to kiss me.
There are no words to describe what making love to Zsaji was like. Not in any language that can be spoken aloud.
When morning came, we walked out of the village, along the river, breakfasting on fruit picked fresh from the trees along the way.
We spent a pleasant idyll in a tranquil glad until the mental voice of Professor Xavier summoned me back to Doom's base.
The Beyonder had been vanquished. By Victor Von Doom. A notoriously paranoid dictator was now quite literally the most powerful man in the universe.
"Doom claims he's transcended all human desire. What if he hasn't? We've seen the power of the Beyonder...Doom's power...in action before. It is such power that nothing in the universe can take place without his consent. No matter how enlightened or benevolent he's become, freedom to do what Doom allows is not freedom. And remember, the first thing Doom did with his newfound power?" Captain America asked.
"He repaired the scarring on his face," Reed Richards nodded slowly. "showing ordinary human vanity. I see your point."
Captain America looked around the table. "Absolute power corrupts, absolutely. It's an old saying. And a true one. We've all seen it happen, to one extent or another."
To Be Continued