Avengers

“The Miracle of Childbirth”

By Jamie Primas

Hidden China

There were more cobwebs within the secret halls than there were specters of the past whispering upon the arrival of the Avengers into their sacred domain. The Shroud and Vision plopped from a crevice in the ceiling into the dusty and dirtied cobblestone halls, landing clumsily in a mess of tangled capes. As Vision immaterialized to speed along the untangling process, the two heroes were instantly surrounded by the ghost of this hidden world.

“Halt!” a ghost announced, mere inches from the Shroud’s face. “No man of the outside world may endanger the sanctity of the palace of Fu Manchu.”

Shroud swiped his arm through the ghost’s face, wiping it away for a moment. “I’m not in the mood for this,” he said as he began walking down the decrepit corridor, through the ghosts as they protested.

“I agree with your sentiments, Shroud,” the Vision joined Shroud, modifying his hearing to ignore the ghosts. “I am working on our location currently and have no reason to believe that the answer will cheer us up.”

The Shroud searched the shadows as they carefully inspected the halls; his ability to see in absolute darkness brought no answers. Vision’s eyes acclimated electronically, finding nothing to see but ghosts and spiders, webs and secrets.

“I have triangulated our position using my other incarnations,” Vision whispered. “My third self is on the island of Genosha whilst my original body is travelling through Shi’Ar space. I am still unable to locate the last of me.”

The Shroud was confused. “Multiple selves?” he asked, not really surprised by much of anything anymore. He noticed that this Vision was shorter, perhaps younger, than he recalled. The synthetic flesh seemed more metallic, less like flesh.

“Indeed,” Vision replied, his voice modulated for maximum whispering. “During my original body’s ordeals during the Immortus War, he created surrogates to continue his legacy should anything happen to him. I am one of those creations. I am an extension of the true Vision yet an individual, just as the others are.”

The Vision would have explained more had he the opportunity. A hand previously unseen snatched him by the forearm and pulled him from the corridor. Spider-Woman shushed them as she indicated the presence of Fu Manchu’s living weapon approaching them from down the hall.

As Shang Chi searched for the heroes with his fists balled and ready to pull out their hearts, Spider-Woman opened an inexplicable portal within the stone wall and evacuated them from their current reality. They had more real places to be.

The Splotch

How are you doing, Mad Jim? How’s delivering a baby going for you? You are positioned as properly as you can conclude as you attempt to help the Scarlet Witch deliver her baby amidst the nothingness within a pocket between realities.

She is well into the second stage of labor as she continues to bear down, pushing the mid-born child down through her pelvis. As what you see before you is both wonderful and gross, you are at a loss for words so you resort to things you have seen in movies.

“Push!” you suggest loudly, as if she had not thought of doing so and were not already doing such things. You try to think of something else to say, maybe something a bit more encouraging.

“You can do it!” you cheer questionably. Perhaps you aren’t cut out for this.

Hammer Bay

With a terrifying shriek, the immortal Selene dove at them as they attempted to survive against the onslaught of a multitude of thirty foot tall Ultron Sentinels. Geirrodur, King of the Rock Trolls, stood over the badly beaten and bloodied body of Selene’s King Conan. The orange troll had gotten tired of the barbarian king’s accent as they tried to kill each other.

Texas Twister balanced atop a cone of solidified wind, using his power over the movement of air to suffocate the Sentinels’ inner workings. Below him, his lover Shooting Star blasted round after round of her endlessly loaded pistols into the Sentinels, bellowing triumphantly under the influence of her severely heightened adrenaline.

“I begin to doubt my decision to give you the Uru guns,” Geirrodur said as Shooting Star moved closer to him. “Your wails make my ears sick.”

Shooting Star would have replied, probably with something snide, had they not been interrupted by the assault of the evil Queen Selene. Her body bled darkness from its orifices as her screams of defiance overcame the sounds of the Sentinels.

“Your presence here warrants you an instantaneous execution,” she yelled as she flew at Geirrodur.

The large troll allowed her to get close. As she plunged at his chest and attempted to tear his throat out with her teeth, Geirrodur brought his hands together, pressing Selene’s skull with all of his strength. With a fluid maneuver, he bashed her body into the earth.

“You do not know the true meaning of immortality,” Geirrodur growled as he escalated the pressure he was applying to Selene’s head. It seemed that her supposed immortality was preventing the destruction of her skull.

As Geirrodur continued trying, Shooting Star noticed his predicament. “Need a hand?” she asked as she unleashed a barrage of Uru bullets into Selene’s face at point blank range. Once the demon queen was no longer recognizable, Star paused her assault and smiled at Geirrodur as she panted for breath. He released the bloodied body as it gurgled, still maintaining its life. It was now a certainty that Geirrodur was having second thoughts about his decision to give Shooting Star the Uru weapons.

“Hey, look!” Texas Twister, oblivious to his lover’s actions, announced from above as he pointed to the disturbance in reality in the sky. As quickly as they had been inserted into this world, they had an opportunity to escape. Although they knew nothing of what was waiting for them beyond, they entered.

Watching from afar, the Vision saw the army of Ultron Sentinels and began to make them his own. Frowning as he corrupted their programming, he would soon show his progenitor that it was a mistake to create him.

The Splotch

You touch the head as it slowly comes out of her unmentionables. You’re not sure what to do but maybe gently supporting the soft crown might help it avoid brain damage. Who knows?

With a wet pop, the head slides completely out as the opening it exits snaps around its neck. Beet red and all shriveled, it is quite an ugly thing. Covered in goo, you aren’t quite sure if you want to continue assisting.

“The head’s out,” you tell the Scarlet Witch, hoping that the play-by-play gives her a bit of encouragement. “You’re doing great!”

Supreme Omniversal Tribune Courtroom

Captain UK sat in chains. Around her, millions of beings attended her trial as she faced the quite serious charges pressed against her. A million species from a million different realities and a million different planets rose to their feet – or their equivalent of feet – and watched as the trial began.

A large man entered the room, robed in shining garments. He raised his hand to initiate the roar of the crowd. “The Supreme Omniversal Tribune is now in session,” the alien bailiff belted over the sound system. “His Whyness, Lord Mandragon, is now presiding!”

The crowd went wild as Mandragon stood on a pedestal over Captain UK. He silenced the crowd with simple gesture and made his judgment without the benefit of argument.

“For failure to instigate the disintegration of Earth-616 and the continuance of the mutant James Jaspers,” Mandragon announced, “I sentence Linda McQuillan, otherwise known as Captain UK of Earth-794, thereby referencing clause 789-766-D of the Omniversal Writ, to be removed from this and all subsequent realities effective immediately.”

After making his judgment, Lord Mandragon walked away, his conscience clear despite ordering the death of Captain UK. The multitude around them stifled their voices, waiting for Captain UK’s execution.

As Captain UK was removed from the reality of the courtroom, the crowd was launched into mass confusion. As the failed hero had been erased, all recollection and evidence of her existence had ceased to be. Lord Mandragon, although he had forgotten what he had just done, took credit for a job well done.

The Splotch

You’re doing it! You know that very soon you will have brought a baby into the world, or at least you will have brought a baby into existence since you currently aren’t in any sort of physical reality. Once this is all over, you might be proud of yourself. You might even entertain the idea of being some kind of godfather to the child. Wouldn’t that be crazy?

As the seconds pass, you think more about what is happening. Aren’t you an insane villain? Haven’t you done some wacky stuff that has upset the Avengers? What happens when they find you? Should you keep helping the Scarlet Witch? Shouldn’t you just kill her now while she’s vulnerable?

Staring blankly at the slimy red child, you consider your possibilities.

Feather’s Edge, Shi’Ar Space

The noiseless tranquility of the floating graveyard of dismantled starships was disrupted by the silent roar of conflict. The Shi’Ar Imperium was at war, leaving decimation and death behind them as they fled for what remained of their lives. Ship after ship was disintegrated by the terrible enemy that pursued them. There were but a handful of surviving crafts and at their front, the Wing of K’Ythri was under attack by the Phalanx World.

Kallark the Gladiator had seen dozens of his Imperial Guard fall to that which had been given the name ‘Planet Ultron’. Even as he fought off the Phalanx Elite to protect Lilandra Neramani, his Empress, he was joined by unexpected arrivals.

“Thor!” Gladiator exclaimed as the God of Thunder appeared before him from a fold in space-time. “I was unaware that you had joined the Avengers Infinity Squadron.”

Thor looked around, more than slightly befuddled. To his right was Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans, as confused as he was. As he attempted to work out his current situation, he realized that he was without Mjolnir.

Medusa wasted no time in joining Gladiator, knowing an enemy and realizing the situation of war immediately. Her prehensile hair went into combat mode as she defended herself. An alien symbiote, not unlike the Spider-Man villain Venom, attacked them in a tsunami of black sludge. Through the murk of the symbiote’s attack, Medusa saw the desiccated body of her husband, a husk of his former self, fed upon by the alien’s symbiosis.

“What goes on here?” Thor asked as Gladiator confronted the living energy entity called Pn’Zo as the thing tried to snare the Strontian with its bioelectric tentacles. Gladiator was too busy to reply. Thor clenched his fists, not knowing how he was not stranded in the guise of Donald Blake, unaware of why he remained the God of Thunder without the necessary aid of the hammer.

“Murderer!” Medusa screamed as her red hair wrapped around the amorphous symbiote. Her anger swallowed, her hair sliced the alien thing into ribbons, disrupting its connection to its Inhuman host. As the symbiote began to reform, Medusa tried to free her husband.

Black Bolt, or at least this reality’s version of him, collapsed to the ground, bones audibly cracked as his weakened body fell. “My King,” Medusa spoke quietly as she cradled his head as the symbiote erupted back to life behind her. Black Bolt tried to speak, a rare occurrence lest he unleash the destructive power of his own voice, but his vocal chords had been digested by the symbiote.

Gladiator dove at the tidal wave of alien evil before it could touch Medusa as Black Bolt’s life force dissipated from his body. The symbiote struggled against Gladiator, encircling his body as it overcame his will. Thor ran to Medusa’s aid, grabbing her in his arms as he understood the implications of the symbiote taking control of the power contained within the Gladiator.

“I apologize for the abrupt snagging,” Thor said as he ran with Medusa, unable to fly without Mjolnir, “but I do not like our chances against what is going to become of Gladiator.”

“Take me back to my husband!” Medusa demanded as her hair attacked Thor.

Thor came to a stop as he was intercepted by what he assumed to be another alien entity. The golden skinned reality warper called Glorian smiled at them.

“It looks like you two need a ride out of here,” he said with a grin.

“My husband,” Medusa continued.

Glorian continued to smile. “Don’t worry. This is an altered reality. He’s not really here. Or at least, he won’t be once we fix everything.” He gestured and created a reality fold, smiling as he beckoned Medusa and Thor to follow him. “Be good little Avengers for me,” he said, “and we’ll see what we can do about Black Bolt and Mjolnir.”

Reluctantly, Thor and Medusa entered into the fold, leaving the alternate Shi’Ar Empire to fall to Planet Ultron.

The Splotch

Will you have any say in naming the baby? Bill or Mac or Pete or Dennis? Sue or Jill or Shaniqua or Wanda, Junior? Will you stand at the parents’ side while the baby is baptized? Will you change its diapers? Will the Avengers show up and try to destroy you, disturbing your plans and ambitions just to protect their puny reality?

As Wanda screams and the shoulders exit, you support the baby as it continues to be birthed but you decide that you don’t have to like it. Once the Avengers show up, you’ll have some leverage if you hang onto the baby. You can keep it as a hostage if you can’t have it as a godson.

The Cartoon Forest

Del Garrett, the new 3-D Man, had spent almost a week in an animated world of Saturday morning cartoons, using the time to acclimate himself with his new capabilities. He was kept company by the robotic Avenger Jocasta, who had downloaded her artificial consciousness into a new body. Together, they had ascertained the fictionality of their surroundings. 3-D Man’s true sight saw an existence of nothing surrounding them while Jocasta’s advanced technologies and sensor arrays could read nothing but their own life readings. The adorable chipmunks and the ducks with shirts were not actually real, despite the fact that they had invited the Avengers to a barbecue and even offered them the opportunity to go swimming in a large pool of gold coins.

Del and Jocasta were bored, tired of waiting for rescue and unable to escape the fictional universe themselves. It was only when the black robed, blue body washed up onto the river bank that they were saved from their ennui as they quickly sought to solve the mystery of the cartoon murder.

Jocasta pulled the body into the grass as the 3-D Man put on some cartoon rubber gloves. Upon careful investigation, Jocasta discovered a multitude of tiny handprints bruised about various parts of the deceased’s body. When Del applied his sight beyond sight, he discovered the cartoon’s identity.

“En Sabah Nur,” 3-D Man declared as the fictional biography of the murdered thing became fact this cartoon world. “He’s an animated representation of our world’s Apocalypse, although enhanced into a parody of the Smurfs. They called him ‘Gargalocalypse.’”

“Quite the mouthful,” Jocasta replied. Her voice was much more human in her new body, which was also much more human. As opposed to her former silver skin, she now had a light green hue and a smooth and shiny complexion. Her robotic joints were now as smooth as skin, she almost looked human. “It appears that he was murdered.”

3-D Man was reluctant to be thankful for something to occupy his time but knew that avenging was part of being an Avenger. “So do you think we’re looking for some little blue killers?”

Jocasta examined the cartoon’s cartoon injuries, finding tiny slits in groups of three and patches of frost bite. “Judging by these injuries, I’d say we’re looking for little blue killer mutants.”

Del looked around, hoping his vision would determine the whereabouts of the cartoon killers. As he turned, Captain America appeared from a crevice in the air, walking into the cartoon world as if it were not a strange environment.

“Let’s go,” he suggested with no further explanation.

“Thank God,” Del sighed as he was certainly not looking forward to continuing the ridiculous investigation.

The Splotch

It seems that the most difficult part has passed. With one final push and an expulsion of fluids, the baby is finally greeted into the world. It falls into your hands, Jim Jaspers, as you gaze at it in awe.

“You’ve done very well, Wanda,” you mutter, unaware that she has lost consciousness.

Using the sleeve of your orange plaid jacket, you wipe the gunk from the baby’s face and can’t help but smile. It stares at you in silence, peeking into your soul. You interpret its stare as you see fit and thus it sets you free. You raise the baby to the sky with glee, proclaiming your triumph as the Avengers begin to arrival in small groups to put you down for good. Maybe you can convince them that you are a changed man, someone that can be trusted to be a godfather.

Or perhaps you’ll have to eradicate them all.

Post-Phoenix Earth. Somewhere.

Ravonna was surrounded with solid light flat screen monitors as she worked away at the solution. Her fingers danced around the screens as she calculated a near infinite stream of mathematics. Above her, the sky burned, the atmosphere was contaminated by the Phoenix Force. Behind her, Zero Energy threatened to finish what was left of the planet as Jack of Hearts bled out from a possibly fatal wound to his person.

Abigail Boylen was at a loss. Only days ago, she was flying for the first time, dreaming of her future as a defender of justice. Now she had been flung across a false reality with Thor’s mighty Mjolnir in her possession. She had learned of her true lineage, now she was on the verge of being erased from all of reality. Feeling helpless, she did her best to contain the zero energies that Jack of Hearts was failing to contain.

“Marcy…” Jack of Hearts mumbled as he stared with his good eye into nothingness.

“No, I’m Abby,” Cloud 9 replied quietly, holding his hand to comfort him. “Stay still and close your eyes. You’re hurt.”

“Can you feel it, Marcy?” Jack asked, mistaking the girl for his long lost love. “It’s like neutron-mist under my skin.” He closed his eyes slowly and struggled to form a smile. “I’m becoming my own Zero Room.”

“Shut the man up,” Ravonna demanded, not pulling herself away from her calculations. “If you insist on surviving, I’d suggest putting him out of his misery. His cellular fission has been escalating alarmingly over the past several moments due to the pressure of what remains of the atmosphere. He will reach critical within minutes.”

“Can’t you do something?” Cloud 9 asked, tears welling in her eyes and Jack went limp.

“I am attempting to evacuate us from this world back into what is actual,” Ravonna replied. “Without the Damocles Engine, I have to solve each equation in long form. We must reach the Scarlet Witch before she gives birth to her daughter.”

Cloud 9 began to argue with the woman despite knowing that it was futile when Jack of Hearts opened his eyes. His injury was completely healed and the flow of dangerous zero energy had stopped.

“What did I miss?” he asked as he sat up effortlessly. He smiled as Cloud 9 gazed at him in amazement.

“What the…?” Cloud 9 exclaimed. Jack shrugged at her; he knew just as much as she did.

“You may thank me later,” Ravonna said, still uninterruptable. “I have rearranged Jack of Hearts’ personal timeline to save us from his imminent detonation. Now I require assistance to further our cause.”

“What can we do for you?” Jack asked. He felt better than he had felt in a long time. For the first time since he was bathed in the Zero Fluid, he felt in control.

Ravonna faced Jack for the first time and Jack was taken aback by her resemblance to Marcy Kane, the woman who was the subject of his recent hallucinations. She handed him a blue semi-transparent tube. “Expel what you can of your Zero Energy into this receptacle,” Ravonna ordered. “It will power our transmigration.”

Ravonna turned to Cloud 9. “Visualize the Scarlet Witch,” Ravonna demanded rather than suggested. “See her in your mind’s eye and open the sky for us.”

Cloud 9 was unsure of her ability to do as the Bride of Kang suggested. All she had been able to do previously was to form a puffball of a cloud and float around. Then she felt the additional power that extended from her being into Mjolnir. Lifting the stone hammer into the sky, she bellowed words that were foreign to her. As Jack of Hearts discharged his inner power into Ravonna’s tube, Cloud 9, with the power of Thor, opened up the burning sky, pushing away the residue of the Phoenix Force.

Above them, the cosmos revealed itself. The absence of anything hovered above them as within the absence, Mad Jim Jaspers was delivering the Scarlet Witch’s child.

“Hurry into the Splotch,” Ravonna said as she took to the sky atop a flying disc. “We must make sure that the girl is safe from Jaspers.”

Without question, Jack and Abigail followed. They would soon find that they were making a horrible mistake.

Bill Foster, Goliath, was the first to arrive in the Splotch, soon followed by Stewart Mulligan, the Black Hulk. With years of study in various fields of biology, Bill knew instantly what had transpired. As he watched Mad Jim Jaspers dance around the void holding the newborn baby in the air, Bill rushed to the Scarlet Witch’s side to check on her condition.

He pushed his fingers to her carotid artery and confirmed her survival, although her heart beat was weak. “Stewart!” Bill shouted as he lifted Wanda from the ground. Before the monstrosity could reply, other Avengers began to appear.

Brother Voodoo and Puck, as well as Ultra Girl and Falcon, looked out of sorts, pulled from their treks across absurd realities and thrust into yet another. Photon coalesced from the strange light around them, becoming a living portal from which Spider-Woman and Captain America emerged. The Shroud and the others, Shooting Star, Texas Twister, Geirrodur, Medusa, Thor, 3-D Man, Jocasta and not one but two Visions quickly found themselves in the Splotch, quickly acclimating to the new environment.

“Get Jaspers!” Captain America ordered, noting without hesitation that the man was still a threat. As several Avengers rushed to confront the insane mutant, others tended to the Scarlet Witch.

Wanda came to her senses suddenly, wide awake and in a mad panic. She struggled in Goliath’s arms as she tried to get away from him. She was hexing as she resisted. Subsequently, Mad Jim Jaspers stopped in mid-dance, instantly calm and docile. He began to cry.

“Put down the baby,” the Shroud demanded as he and several others surrounded Jaspers.

“But he’s my godson,” Jaspers replied, presenting the baby to the Avengers, outstretching his arms as if to threaten to drop the boy. “I delivered him. He’s mine.”

“He’s not yours,” Simon Williams yelled over the team as he made his presence known. “He’s mine and you’ll give him back before I have to do you a bucket-full of serious harm.”

“No!” Jaspers protested as he hugged the baby tightly. “I can’t!”

“Give me my son!” the Scarlet Witch demanded, standing unassisted, her fists glowing with a powerful hex.

“Son?!” Ravonna screamed as she appeared between Jaspers and the Avengers. Her eyes bulged in shock and alarm. With a gesture of her hands and a sweep over her floating control panels, she pushed the Avengers away with a wave of solidified temporal energies. “Impossible!”

Ravonna easily dispatched Jack of Hearts and Cloud 9, freezing time around their bodies as they began to turn against her. As the Avengers were motionless and helpless, Ravonna turned her attention to Mad Jim Jaspers.

“Stay back,” Jaspers commanded feebly, his voice shaking with fear, his ability to manipulate realities to his whims was stunted. “I’m warning you just this once! Don’t make me hurt the baby!”

Ravonna shook her head, rage in her eyes. “Hurting the baby is exactly what is necessary,” she explained. “The son was meant to be a daughter. The Scarlet Witch was meant to give birth to the daughter that would grow to become me. This aberration should not exist.”

She worked swiftly across her solid holographic workstation, calculating the baby’s death. It turned to ash in Jim Jaspers’ grasp. Watching, the Avengers could not even scream.

“My boy!” Jaspers cried as the remains of the boy soiled his jacket and shirt. Quickly lost in rage, reality around him surged to life as he regained his hold over the laws of existence. Screeching wildly, he tackled Ravonna into the fissures between seconds and the gaps between atoms.

For the Avengers, the Splotch collapsed into itself, sealing their collective fate. As the anomalies of the warped reality ceased to hold itself up, the ways of life beyond reverted to as they were. Without the manipulations that Ravonna had been sustaining while messing with the flow of events, time flowed as it had. With the absence of Jaspers, the world was no different than it had been.

However, there were exceptions.

The beautiful Roma sat gingerly in her ornate throne, saddened by the events that had taken place. She had smashed the chess pieces that had represented the players within the recently concluded scheme, bitter with defeat.

Glorian stood before her, his face twisted with a mad grin.

“So…” he began, leading Roma to continue the thought.

“Yes, you’ve won,” Roma replied, refusing to look the golden man in the eyes. “Take your winnings and be gone from my kingdom.”

“With the death of the child, you have little to worry about in the near future,” Glorian said as he made his way to a shining receptacle to the left of Roma’s throne. “Look at the bright side of things.”

Roma was furious. “A child is dead,” she shouted. “A mother and father have lost a baby before it even had a name. There is no bright side.”

“The baby had a name,” Glorian corrected Roma as he picked up the tiny red gem from the glowing container. “Kang.”

Glorian squeezed the gem with his fingertips and gave it a light kiss. “Anyway, thanks for the Infinity Gem,” he said as he left Roma’s realm with but the manipulation of a simple thought.

To Be Concluded...

Previous Issue | Next Issue