MV1 presents:
"Enemies"
***
"Rise and shine...PEST!"
Natasha Romanoff--the Black Widow--was jerked further back into her seat, her head pulled by her flowing, red hair. A quick glance around the chamber revealed that it was a rather quiet part of Four Freedoms Plaza, containing various computer consoles and an arsenal of weaponry--all of which now belonged to the man whose slimy voice had awakened her.
"My anger with you abounds, and you will face its wrath!" Baron Zemo--sinister head of the Masters of Evil, posing as the heroic Citizen V of the Thunderbolts to the public--exclaimed.
Black Widow tried to fight his enraged strength, but between the ropes that bound her arms behind her chair, and the grogginess that resulted from Zemo's sneak attack on her earlier,* she did not have the strength to fight--physically, anyway.
(*see last issue--Sam)
"Anger, Zemo? But, you have the world at your fingertips!" she chided.
He flung her head forward as he let go of her scarlet locks. "Indeed, but for you! While, on the one hand, the city has finally granted me the Avengers' confidential files,* YOU still remain. You have been quiet of late--I was sure I had demoralized you with my earlier assaults on your team!**"
(*see THUNDERBOLTS #8, **see WHAT IF...? #143-144--Sam)
While he fumed, she worked on the ropes behind her with some success. If she had had her bioelectric Widow's Bite gauntlets on, escape would be elementary, but apparently Zemo had removed them during her captivity. Even still, she almost had the ropes undone.
"It almost pains me to have you killed, Widow. After all the peril in which you've placed my scheme...oh, how I would like you to see the grand show I have planned prior to my domination of the world. Please, if you'll allow me a pun--it's going to be a blast," Zemo chuckled with a sickened longing.
"Why am I not dead YET, Zemo?" she asked.
Almost.
"Believe me, I'd rather you were. However, I'll bestow upon Techno the pleasure of finally ending your hindrance quietly and inconspicuously, for as skilled as I am in the art of annihilation, in this instance, I'll trust his expertise over my own. I don't want any trace of your presence here for my insubordinate Thunderbolts to discover, lest their oft-wandering thoughts lead even further astray from the path I have long set."
"Oh? Dissention in the ranks?" Widow chimed once again.
Almost.
"You could only hope!" Zemo barked, offended at Widow's audacity to doubt his leadership abilities. "Though, it would seem many of them have taken a liking to the world in which you live, basking in the irritatingly cheery calls from the sheep out there. I fail to see why--they are outsiders, deemed dangerous by the society they almost wish to become a part of. They are fortunate to have come across me, for only I can show them that they have only two choices in life: live as outcasts, or as kings."
"You know there is a third choice, Zemo--change. We're all capable of it, including your band of miscreants."
Almost!
His brow furrowed from beneath his purple mask. "Never! Not as long as I am in control--and I AM in control!"
"Is that so?" Widow cocked her head. "Think again!"
Finally!
Before Zemo could react, Black Widow shot out of the chair and bounded for him, leveling him with a swift foot to his jaw.
"I'm free, now, which puts you in a bad spot!"
Zemo rose, but did not raise a fist to her. No, he had more efficient methods of stopping her--he pulled his pistol from its holster and took two shots and the Widow, both of which she dodged successfully.
"You wish to pummel ME into submission?!" Zemo laughed as he fired two more rounds, neither of them hitting their mark.
"Not at all," Widow replied as she leapt over the humming computer consoles located at various parts of the large chamber. "I had something else in mind."
"Forgive me for not allowing you to proceed," Zemo said over two cracks of his firearm as he finished off the rounds in the gun, then quickly grabbed a large, advanced form of rifle from its display case on the wall. He began firing red laser blasts at Black Widow, and finally hit her in the shoulder with one, sending her sliding across the slick metal floor.
As he approached her motionless form to finish her off, he grew suspicious--she should not have been immobilized by a mere shot in the arm!
"Good hit, Baron," Widow grunted from her prone position on the floor, increasingly surrounded by crimson spurts. "Look at all this blood...! You've got a mess on your hands--I'm fairly certain you wouldn't be able to clean it all before your Thunderbolts came back home." She snickered as she rose cautiously, trusting that she had at least temporarily halted his attack on her. "Would one as regal as yourself even lower himself to wiping blood from the floor?" she asked whimsically as she walked aimlessly around the room, letting the blood from her wound fall in her wake. "How is THIS going to look to your troops? As you say, they are already straying closer to 'my world'. What ever will they think when they see that you've tried to kill one of their 'idols'?"
Zemo growled below his breath as he lowered the laser rifle. "Cover the wound, Widow," he insisted, almost admitting defeat.
"You've spilled a lot of blood in your past, you murdering demon--"
"COVER THE WOUND!"
"--but this time--this time, you will regret it. You're going down, Zemo...." At last, she placed a firm palm over her gushing shoulder.
And then, with a hiss, the mechanically sliding doors across the room opened, revealing a cautious Quasar, his body crouched, his glowing quantum bands on ready.
And, upon seeing the gun-toting Zemo, he shouted, "Widow, look out!" as he aimed a quantum blast toward Zemo.
"No, Quasar--stop!" she exclaimed. "We're not going to do it that way this time."
"Ah...if it isn't the cosmic killer," Zemo poked at Quasar. "You really proved yourself against Thanos a few months back!"
Quasar was confounded at Zemo's knowledge. "You...you know about Thanos?"
"Know about him? Why, he was my idea, dear boy!"
"What do you mean?"
"Born and bred in this very plaza by myself and my trusty assistant, Techno. He was a clone, you bumbling fool--and, admittedly, a failed one at that," Zemo said, taking pride in tearing at Quasar's heart. "You let a lifeless CLONE shatter your illusions of your accursed Avengers--of your accursed LOVE for that woman--what was her name?"
Quasar gasped. He had left the team after he had been overcome by the guilt of taking a life and betraying the legacy of his quantum bands.* Now, if what Zemo had revealed was true, then, indeed, he had abandoned the team over nothing--even worse, he had abandoned Bethany over as much!
(*see #144--Sam)
"Enough," Black Widow interjected. "Quasar, let's get out of here," she said, approaching her caped teammate.
Still stunned, he absent-mindedly nodded.
As the two started out through the sliding doors, they were interrupted by Zemo's call. "I thought you more determined than this, Widow! I would never have suspected such a weak will in you!"
"Oh? You are the one who had me at gunpoint while I was defenseless, and you failed to kill me--failed to end your only remaining troubles. As long as we are labeling the weak, you deserve a tag. Me? I'm stronger than ever."
The doors slid shut, and Zemo moaned as he looked around the red-stained chambers. Never had the sight of blood sickened him so.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Four Freedoms Plaza, Black Widow and Quasar searched for an exit.
"Thanks for helping me out of there, Wendell," Widow said, locking into place her wrist gauntlets. "And thanks for retrieving my Widow's Bites from his stash."
"I only wish I could have gotten there sooner. After I noticed Zemo was absent from the Thunderbolts' confrontation with the Elements of Doom,* I rushed over here, but I had a bit of trouble with the security devices in the building."
(*see TBOLTS #7-8--Sam)
"You notice they are no longer activated?" Widow noted as they finally arrived on the first floor. "Zemo has reasons to keep us alive, at least until we leave this building. He can't kill us here and give his Thunderbolts any reason to question his scheme further--it seems they are enjoying their heroic identities, surprisingly."
"And why wouldn't we stop him up in his chambers when we had the chance?" Quasar asked.
"Because, Zemo's revelation gave me an idea," Widow replied, the Thunderbolts on her mind. "But first, we still have Beth to locate."
***
Meanwhile, in Manhattan:
"...while the battle between the Thunderbolts and the destructive Elements of Doom continues to rage on in--"
"Cursed Elements of Doom!" Crimson Cowl hissed as she shut off the radio in her apartment. "If I had more confidence in my abilities, I would defeat them FOR the Thunderbolts if it meant the masquerading villains could return to Four Freedoms Plaza that much sooner--but, even now, I'm not certain I could teleport over one-hundred bodies at once."
And then, an irritating, familiar voice stabbed at her ears, "Oooh! Newsflash--the Crimson Cowl may be coming down from her high!"
Cowl turned to the cramped kitchen, where she expectantly found Binary, her wrists handcuffed around the vertical pole between the ceiling and the kitchen counter, unable to break free due to her lagging powers. "You know better than that, Carol," Cowl replied.
"I do--and I know that we've all felt high and mighty a time or too, also," Binary replied, realizing that even if the search for Bethany that led to her apartment had left her unable to physically stop the young woman's madness, she could still try to talk her down. "We've all felt like everyone and everything is against us. It comes with the costume, and sometimes it's justified, sometimes it's not--but it's never a good thing, girl. But you do have people to set you straight--you've still got the Avengers."
Crimson Cowl's eyes narrowed in the pure darkness beneath her red hood. "No. You've all but given up on your mission to stop the Thunderbolts--you've all betrayed me, just like everyone else in my life."
Binary shook her head--this was impossible--she needed a drink. "So what now? You're going to take on Zemo and his thugs alone?"
"Yes. Once I get word that the Thunderbolts have returned to Four Freedoms Plaza and left the public eye, I'll destroy them--no need to kill them out in the open, and shatter other people's perceptions of their heroes like mine have been."
"But your powers only allow you to teleport to places that you've already been," Binary replied, still hoping desperately to stop Beth.
Crimson Cowl merely wagged a finger at that. "Wrong. In my time away from the Avengers recently, I've honed my powers, advanced my abilities. After weeks of continuous training with my Aunt Lucille, I am now able to teleport myself practically anywhere I want. I can feel my power coursing through me at all times--if I didn't know better, I'd say that the power had even overtaken my shroud! After weeks and weeks of constant teleportation, I suppose that could be possible."
"Okay, so you kill the Thunderbolts--then what?" Binary asked. "Where can you go, if everyone has betrayed you, like you say?"
"I don't know. It doesn't matter," Cowl replied, pacing the floor, anxious, frustrated. "Carol, please, I don't want to hurt you, but if you continue to try to prevent me from exacting my revenge on Zemo as you do, I'll be forced to. You can't stop me. No one can stop me now!"
Her front door swung open with a rush, and both Binary and Crimson Cowl turned to see Black Widow and Quasar standing in the doorway.
"WE will most certainly try!" Widow vowed.
"Black Widow!" Cowl exclaimed. "The last face I ever wished to see!"
"Please, Beth, stop this," Quasar soothed as he approached his former lover slowly, gently. "You're scaring me."
"The Protector of the Universe...scared?" Crimson Cowl chimed.
"Natasha has a better way to take the Thunderbolts down, Beth," Quasar continued. "According to her, they're just waiting to take Zemo down from within!"
Cowl cocked her head. "NOW you trust her judgement? I should have known you would side with the rest, Wendell," Cowl shot back. "How could you leave without a word those months ago? I thought you loved me--now I know better."
Genuine regret filled Quasar's otherwise sparkling eyes. "I'm sorry, Beth. It was an awful thing to do, and if you never forgave me--never loved me again--I would understand. But this...rage in you--please...stop."
"Wendell, why can't you see, you selfish fool--I WOULD return to you...I would...." At that moment, Crimson Cowl sounded more like Beth than she had in some time. But, it could not last, "No, I would not. You would deceive me again--it's just what happens." She sighed, and while the Avengers felt so close to getting this troubled woman back, at the same time, they felt as doubtful as ever. "MY mission is clear. Zemo must be destroyed!"
In a split second, the Avengers reacted to an increasingly bright stream of light growing from Crimson Cowl's center--
--and in a desperate effort, Quasar quickly encased the Cowl in a box of golden energy from his quantum bands before she could teleport away.
And, surprisingly, it seemed to work.
Beth glanced around at the yellow formation around her, and then gazed at Quasar with two white, briefly compassionate eyes.
"Oh...Wendell...."
And then, a benevolent flash, and the golden case was empty.
***
Days later, Brooklyn:
THRAMM
And the titanic monster known as Ogur crashed to the ground, leveling the rain-soaked street below him.
Several buildings away, the Black Widow saw it all. She had been drawn out into the rainstorm not by Ogur, but by his assailants, the Beetle and Screaming Mimi--posing at that time as Mach-1 and Songbird, two of the Thunderbolts.
She had sought them out to learn how true Zemo's words had been--to see just how comfortably these two villains had taken to posing as heroes. If, indeed, they had come to enjoy their fraudulent lives as heroes at all, then inspiring revolt within them against Zemo would perhaps be as effective as she desired in bringing the would-be world-conqueror to his knees. If her attempts to thwart him from without had not worked, then he would have to be defeated from within.
As she observed the two airborne impostors near the rooftop on which she stood, she hoped that it would only take a graceful nudge to encourage them to do the right thing.
Soon, she would see....
"Thunderbolts!"*
(*read THUNDERBOLTS #9 for the rest of this pivotal encounter--Sam)
***
The Gulf of Mexico:
Aboard Jim Rhodes' marine salvage tanker--acting home of the Avengers--Black Widow, Quasar, Binary, and Rhodes sat, frustrated, waiting, and--as Avengers do--arguing.
"Wouldn't it have made more sense to stick around New York and wait for the Thunderbolts or Beth to make their move?" Binary asked. "It would beat sitting out here on this tub listening to a radio, for Pete's sake!" She slapped the side of the small AM radio that sat on the table on the top deck of the tanker where the Avengers sat, rattling the bad reception.
"Our job isn't done yet," Black Widow replied. "and I don't want the public to see the Avengers reformed--not as long as the Thunderbolts have their full attention. Where in the city could we stay without looking suspicious? The mansion is under S.H.I.E.L.D. control now."
Binary let out a sigh and took a quick swig from her beer bottle. "Maybe I just didn't finally want to admit that I get sea-sick easily. Why do you think I joined the Air Force and not the Navy?"
Rhodes laughed. "You'll get used to it, Carol. I have. In fact--"
"--shhh!--" Quasar interjected, turning the volume on the static-filled radio higher....
"...are you sure about this, Roger? Achem...folks, we're receiving reports that the...the Fantastic Four has appeared somewhere in upstate New York. We cannot confirm these reports, but--another one? Um...it appears that longtime Avenger, the Vision, has surfaced in London, after being thought dead for months!..."
The Avengers looked at each other cautiously, and when Natasha finally allowed herself a glee-filled smile, so did they.
"I knew it!" Binary cheered! "I KNEW it!"
But, before the celebration could fully erupt, a splash and a THUMP! from the side of the boat aroused Rhodes' curiosity.
"Hold up a second, guys," he said as he rose from his chair and strolled to the rail at the side of the tanker. He looked over the railing, and his eyes widened. "What the--urk!"
He was flung back ten yards, and the rest of the Avengers rose quickly from their seats. "Jim?!"
And then, not a second later, a blinding pulse of light marked the arrival of four familiar villains--Klaw, Man-Killer, Cyclone, and Flying Tiger. And then, crawling over the railing across the deck came the inhuman Tiger-Shark.
"What are they doing here?" Quasar asked as his eyesight returned to him.
"The NEW Masters of Evil, have returned, Widow," Klaw grinned. "You must be feeling pretty silly right about now, since YOU formed this team!*" He aimed his sonic blaster at her. "Masters, you know what to do!"
(*in #143--Sam)
With that, the five villains descended upon the outnumbered Avengers, using their combined strength and speed to overcome the four Avengers.
Klaw's scarlet blast of solid sound sent the Widow reeling back across the deck and into the railing that separated her from a fifty foot plunge into the ocean below.
Quasar and Binary soared high simultaneously, but were swiftly trailed into the air by Flying Tiger and Cyclone, who grabbed their ankles and proceeded to pummel them in mid-air.
The utterly defenseless Rhodes was forced to trade blows with Man-Killer, and despite his best efforts, he knew he could not last long against her brute force.
"I'll repeat the question," Black Widow said, rising to her feet and dodging another dart of solid sound. "Why are you here?"
"What, can't a quintet of rascals have a little fun pestering the Avengers without any ulterior motives?" Klaw snickered.
And, above, Binary traded blows with Cyclone. "Quasar, get down there and talk Jim out of a career as a punching bag!" she shouted between punches. "I'll take Cyc and the Tiger on--we won't let them defeat us--not now!"
Cyclone laughed. "Eet eez not our goal to defeat you--only to deestract you! That's all the Crimson Cowl paid us for any--" he stopped long enough to trade an odd look with the suddenly annoyed Masters of Evil. "--oops!"
SMASH! Binary slammed his head back with what little white hole power she could muster.
"If Beth sent these guys to distract us--"Quasar started, erecting a quantum field between Rhodes and Man-Killer and Tiger shark.
"--then SHE must be making her move!" Black Widow finished. She leapt over one of Klaw's solid sound monsters and clocked him with a foot to the head. "Avengers, keep these Masters busy--I'm going back to New York to stop Beth!"
Suddenly, all of the Masters of Evil focussed their attacks on Black Widow, but the pesky defense from the Avengers kept them from success as she climbed into the bi-plane across the deck.
After a hasty start, the bi-plane spit smoke from it's backside, and the propellers whirled to life. Braving assaults from Klaw's blaster, the plane rolled on its wheels toward the edge of the tanker in preparation for take off. However, the diversion of the attacks kept Black Widow from lifting the plane into the air sufficiently.
It became clear to ex-pilot Binary that Natasha would slam into the railing around the tanker before she could get into the air. And so, with a moment's thought and a white hole's spurt of strength, she grabbed Flying Tiger by the arm and launched him into the railing, causing him to tear the thick strips of metal apart and allowing a path for the bi-plane's wheels to roll through just before it lifted into the air--
--and with it, Binary's hopes that this mission would be coming to an end soon.
"Godspeed, Natasha," she whispered, then directed her attention back to the Masters of Evil.
***
Next issue: the conclusion!