AVENGERS

#446 - July, Year 4 - MV1

"Big Apple Addiction, Part Two"

written by Mark Bousquet

In a private 747 jet former SHIELD Agent Theodore Daniels stood before a man he now recognized as his superior officer.

"How are you feeling, Agent Daniels?" the superior asked from the shadows.

"Never better," Daniels replied smugly, pulling on his new, almost completely black uniform.

"Would you like another dosage of Überlegen?"

"Not necessary," Daniels answered, strapping a gun holster over his shoulder. "I feel as if I'm on a permanent high."

"That is because you have accepted your superiority to the mongrels of the world," the hidden man encouraged. "All of your life you have felt superior to those around you … all the way through high school, college, SHIELD training you knew that you were better. You hated those below you because they were weak, and those above you because they were jealous. All Überlegen does is reveal to you that there is no shame in feeling superior. The Americans preach equality, but there is no more unequal country in the world than the United States."

"Couldn't agree more," Daniels replied, reaching for his gun. "When do I get to repay the New Reich for revealing my true self to me?"

"You have one last test before you are a given a task force to lead," the man in the shadows informed as he stepped out into the light. Daniels saw the hideous face and flinched, then felt something try to click inside but the disgust he thought he should have felt wash across him was nowhere to be found. "Does it bother you that you now work for me, Herr Daniels?"

Agent Daniels shook his head. "Of course not. If you are New Reich, you deserve my loyalty."

"And do you know who I am?"

"Of course," Agent Daniels replied. "You're the leader of the New Reich."

"And my name, Herr Daniels?"

"The Red Skull."

"Report positions," Captain America ordered across the Avengers communications channel. He stood just outside the entrance to the Grand Ballroom inside the Grand Hotel, shield at the ready. A small gas mask - worn by all members of the team except for Vision - was on his face, cutting down on his periphery vision but protecting them from a potential Überlegen gas attack.

"West Entrance, Grand Ballroom," Ms. Marvel reported from around the corner. Carol was concerned about the tone of Cap's voice. For all his obvious anger about this mission and the government's new desire to control the Avengers, he was starting to run the team like a military unit.

Namor spoke next. "Front windows," he said, floating above a gathering crowd below, and next to the third floor windows that looked into the Grand Ballroom. He glanced down at the crowd with disdain - what drove humanity to desire to witness tragedies like this in person, he would never understand.

"North Balcony entrance, second floor," Dani Moonstar reported in. The former member of X-Force prided herself on staying cool in situations she like - she'd been a Valkyrie, after all, and after that not much could throw her - but she found herself wiping the sweat off her bow hand for the third time in the past five minutes. It wasn't so much that this was an Avengers mission, but that Captain America had placed her as key to his plan over such veterans as Vision, Ms. Marvel, and Namor.

"North entrance," Deadpool reported. "Opposite from you, Stars and Stripes." The merc didn't want to be here - this team thing wasn't his game, but Dugan was withholding the million dollars he'd promised Deadpool for taking out the three would-be suicide bombers.

"The ceiling, northwestern corner," Vision reported. As the only member of the team inside the Ballroom, Vision was the team's eyes and ears. "Katarina Strucker is standing in the southwest corner of the room, between Ms. Marvel and Captain America's entrance points. The entire room is a chaotic brawl. The partygoers - some of the most elite men and women in New York City - are brawling with the waiters, waitresses, bartenders and chefs. There are random gun-shots being fired, and utensils are being used as weapons, but mostly it is hand-to-hand combat. I still do not register any deaths, and the casualty rate, though high, appears to be mostly superficial."

Captain America listened to the team give their reports and he found himself nodding with each report. For all the troubles they'd had over the past few months, for all the problems that might still lie ahead once the battle was joined, they've performed exactly as he'd asked them to so far. He hoped Henry Pym was performing as well back at the Mansion in his attempt to analyze the Überlegen drug. "Strike hard and fast, Avengers. You know your orders. Go!"

Inside the Grand Ballroom, Vision watched as the walls and windows seemed to explode at once as the Avengers bashed their way into the room.

"Henry, I got here as soon as I could."

Henry Pym turned to see Bill Foster, escorted by Jarvis, enter into the sub-laboratory. "Thanks, Bill," Henry said, rising to shake hands with his fellow scientist. "Let me show you what we've got. This," he held up one of the four vials they'd recovered, "is called Überlegen. Designer drug, mood enhancer. Heightens a user's sense of self-importance. Highly addictive."

"You've got your hands on a sample of Über-L?" Foster asked, surprised.

"You've heard of it?"

"Yeah," Foster replied, nodding. "We had an incident at ESU last week; bunch of kids tore up the campus after a rave party. Next day they were going crazy."

"What happened?" Pym asked.

Foster shook his head in disbelief. "They tried, if you can believe it, breaking into Reed Richard's classroom. He's been doing some teaching there this semester and these snotty rich kids burst into his class, demanding Über-L from the 'mongrels'. Reed captured all of them, of course."

"Any charges pressed against them?"

Bill shook his head. "Nah. These were all kids at the school on Daddy's money. Couple of big fat donations later and the kids were removed to parental custody. Rumor is a couple of them have run away from home, but that could just be kids talking." He looked to Henry's notes. "What've you got?"

Pym shook his head. "I wish I could've gotten McCoy on the phone but he's not around. This biochem stuff is more his specialty than ours." Henry walked over the wall and started the video-feed of Agent Daniels for Bill to watch. "I was watching this with Carol earlier and we've theorized, based on Daniels' actions, that the addiction is more psychological than physical. The SHIELD scientists confirm that Daniels' body was back to normal by the time he snapped. There was no physical need for him to seek out the drug."

"You're saying that the drug heightens one's sense of superiority to such a high degree that when they come down they can't rationalize the thoughts of their normal mind with the thoughts heightened by Überlegen?"

"Yes," Pym answered, skipping the disc ahead to show Agent Daniels' escape. "His body functions are completely normal for this kind of activity. Look at his face; that's not the face of a junkie. Put a blue mask on him and he could pass for Cap." Pym turned to face Bill. "He still craves Überlegen, but we believe it's a psychological craving more than a physical craving. He's addicted to that sense of power."

"Wonderful," Foster shook his head. "A drug that creates a new class of elitists. Like we don't have enough of them in the country as it is."

"Die you mongrel scum!" An elderly woman had taken off her shoe, throwing it at Deadpool. The merc easily ducked out of the way.

"Um, you're kidding right? A shoe? Do I look like a shoe could stop me?"

"You look like every worthless piece of immigrant trash who tries to steal my money!"

Wade Wilson looked down at his red and black costume. "Really? Well, then, don't think for one second I'm not going to enjoy this, Grandma," Deadpool said, raising his gun and firing one shot in the elderly lady's shoulder. She stared at him with pure hatred, then fell to the floor, unconscious. She'd wake up with a bruise but nothing more. He looked at his gun disgustedly - tranquilizer capsules instead of plasma. "I hope no one I knows sees this."

"Deadpool, stay focused!"

The merc looked around the mayhem of the room - the workers battling with the rich with the Avengers caught in between and could barely make out Captain America across the room. 'How the heck can he even see what I'm doing?' Deadpool wondered, then thought better of it. Dugan had let him know that receiving his money was dependent on capturing Katarina Strucker alive and doing what Captain America asked.

Wondering about Strucker, Wade Wilson looked to her corner, to where Ms. Marvel was put in charge of capturing the failed suicide bomber.

Carol Danvers regarded her adversary with newfound respect. When the Avengers had first burst into the room, she had made a direct line to Strucker, seeking to capture her quickly and take her off the board.

She'd flown hard and fast at Strucker and had gotten within three feet before she collided with a magentic force bubble surrounding the younger sister of Andrea and Andreas Strucker. Carol was sent crashing through a pushcart of food that had gone unserved.

"You think me unprepared, Avenger?" Katarina had taunted from the tabletop she stood upon. "Do you think I would have appeared in public after this afternoon if I were not ready for you?"

Ms. Marvel picked herself up off the ground, wiping the cocktail sauce from her face. Without replying she sent a few low energy blasts at Katarina, all of them deflected harmlessly away. Looking at the anger and determination on the young blonde's face, Carol came to a sudden realization. "You never intended to blow yourself up, did you?"

Katarina chuckled. "Of course not. I was-" Something behind Carol caught her eye, "Kill the mongrel!"

Ms. Marvel ducked out of the way as four men rushed her from behind. One of them landed a punch onto her backside but Carol barely registered the blow. These four men, combined, hadn't the strength to cause her harm, but that made fighting them even tougher in these close quarters. Turning to face them, she watched as an energy arrow cut through the chest of the first. The man shuddered, then fell unconscious to the ground. Looking up, Carol saw Dani Moonstar already notching another psychic arrow to her bow and dropping the next man, allowing Carol to turn her attention back to the Strucker girl.

She was gone.

Carol swore, then took quickly to the air to try and locate Strucker.

As she rose off the carpeted floor, she saw the Avengers working quickly and methodically through the crowd. As enraged as the people inside the room were, they were still relatively easily brought under control.

Besides Deadpool's rubber bullets and Moonstar's psychic arrows, the Vision used his intangibility powers to phase his arm through the bodies, solidifying a finger and thumb in the right place to cause unconsciousness to set in. Captain America and Namor worked the room playing defense, looking for those who were about to get hit hard by whoever they were fighting against and stepping in to disarm combatants of their knives, forks, and, most importantly, guns.

"Got you," Ms. Marvel said to herself as she noted Katarina Strucker working her way across the room, using tipped tables as her cover. Carol dove down toward the crawling woman. Knowing the force field was there, and roughly how big it was, Carol chose the edge of the force bubble as her target and not Katarina's body.

"Whu-?" the Strucker girl exclaimed as she was knocked off-balance, tumbling over inside her protective bubble as Ms. Marvel shoved it hard towards the near corner of the room next to the wall of windows that looked out towards the front entrance. Floating a few feet off the ground, Ms. Marvel approached the downed girl cautiously. Behind her, nearly three-quarters of the rioters had been subdued and the Avengers were quickly making work of the rest. Carol was content to keep Katarina cornered for the moment, knowing Vision or Moonstar's powers were perhaps better suited to getting through that bubble.

"You and the rest of the Avengers are all that is wrong with the world," Katarina charged from her bubble as she lay on her side, trying to regain her equilibrium. "You have all the power, yet you waste it on saving these weaklings. Look at the chaos behind you. One whiff of Über-L and they tear into each other, recognizing their superiority to those around them."

"Is that what this if for? To create a new super class of elitists?" Ms. Marvel asked. "Did you ask the Secret Empire for permission for ripping off their plans for world domination?"

Katarina laughed. "Stupid, stupid American. The Secret Empire are no better than street whores. They care nothing for politics and everything for their own personal gain. The New Reich cares nothing for personal gain. The New Reich wants only for the natural selection of humanity to occur, for-"

Ms. Marvel threw her hands up as the large wall of windows exploded inwards, sending a torrent of shattered glass raining down onto the Avengers and the felled rioters.

"Minimize casualties!" Captain America ordered and the Avengers moved quickly to lessen the risk posed by the falling glass. The Vision sent his eye-beams out wide and Ms. Marvel sent energy blasts skyward, pulverizing the glass to dust. Captain America, Namor, and Moonstar quickly moved tables or trays, anything that was at hand, to cover the fallen rioters. Deadpool, seeing an area of falling glass that had gotten through the defenses near him, jumped to cover two fallen bodies with his, and winced as thick glass shards implanted themselves into his back and legs.

In seconds, the glass rainstorm was over. "Check for woun-aaargghhhh!" Captain America ordered as he was attacked from behind by a blast of electricity.

As one, the Avengers turned to the blasted-out windows to see Cap's attackers enter the room. Wearing black boots, jeans, and turtlenecks or sweaters, each loaded with weapons, it was clear to all that they were some kind of military strike force. Upon each of their chests was a circle, the left half bright red, the right plain white.

"My brothers, kill these mongrels!" Katarina Strucker yelled from her corner. "Show them the power of the New Reich!"

Standing at the head of the strike force of the New Reich, Agent Daniels nodded to Strucker. "Bring forth the New Destroyers and hit them hard!" he commanded. From behind Daniels, four men in solid black suits of armor, each with the same red/white circle on their chest, flew forward to engage the Avengers.

Shaking the effects of the blast off, a groggy Captain America thought, for a second, that Iron Man had arrived in a new suit of armor, and then it became clear they cared nothing for the safety of the fallen rioters spread across the floor.

The first New Destroyer aimed directly for the airborne Namor, firing plasma blasts at the Prince of Atlantis. Namor darted quickly away, drawing the fire towards the far wall. He was in a tight spot - if he flew too low the blasts could hit the unconscious bodies on the floor; too high and the debris caused by the blasts would do likewise. Using a maneuver he'd learned fighting the original Human Torch, Namor arced towards the blasted-out window, hoping to draw the Destroyer outside.

Once Namor's feet had cleared the window frame, he pulled his chest back hard, arcing straight into the air. The New Destroyer shot through the window and Namor came down hard, feet first, slamming into the back of the armored suit. The blow knocked the Destroyer off-line and the armored man shot towards the ground, now absent except for police cars, their lights still flashing.

The New Destroyer slammed hard into a police car, exploding the car in a bright and violent flash of flame.

Inside, the second Destroyer shot directly at Vision, who floated in the air, intangible. When the Destroyer came upon him, Vision turned diamond hard and the two were slammed hard through the wall and back into the entry corridor on the second floor. As the force of the Destroyer pushed them along, Vision allowed his mass to lessen down to intangibility, causing the Destroyer to move through him.

Vision played with his intangibility as this happened, causing the Destroyer's armor to fritz and fry itself out, landing with a thud onto the carpeted floor, then skidding to an immobile halt.

"Ms. Marvel, the Destroyers are yours!" Captain America ordered. "Moonstar, Deadpool, you're with me! Concentrate on the ground forces!"

Cap leapt towards Daniels, but the fourth Destroyer intercepted him, pinning him in place with repulsor blasts.

Deadpool and Moonstar shared a quick glance from opposite ends of the ballroom floor, then attacked the strike force with ferocity.

Deadpool tossed his two guns (the ones loaded with rubber bullets) aside and reached for the two guns still strapped to his legs carrying plasma bullets. He cursed Dugan for failing to allow him to bring live rounds with him; the plasma capsules were designed to get your opponent to stop fighting in order to put out the small fire, which would allow Deadpool or another Avenger to knock them out and capture them instead of killing them.

The mercenary opened fire, cutting a path with the exploding bullets.

Across the room, Moonstar fired psychic arrow after psychic arrow at the New Reich's strike force. Firing this particular type of psychic arrow through their bodies would usually cause a momentary brain seizure, knocking the victim's out but not killing them. Those resistant to psychic attacks would be slowed or begin to see things that weren't there. In either case they were slowed enough to make them easy targets for a second or third arrow.

Above, Ms. Marvel slammed into the third New Destroyer, surprising the man inside with her speed. Knocking him temporarily off-balance, Carol turned to fire several blasts at the fourth Destroyer - the one that had Cap pinned down.

It did the trick. The fourth Destroyer spun around enraged, and blasted away at her as it approached. Ms. Marvel flew out of the way, causing the Destroyer to chase her.

Now able to move, Cap made a bee-line for Daniels, who was in the corner with Katarina Strucker.

"Get up!" Daniels barked at her. "You're insolence has cost the New Reich almost as much this evening as your stupidity did this afternoon!"

"Don’t you dare forget your place!" Strucker barked, moving to slap Daniels.

The former SHIELD agent easily blocked the blow with his left hand and quickly slapped his right hand across Katarina's face, knocking her to one knee.

Captain America lunged at Daniels, knocking the man to the ground. His morals and still old-school demeanor getting the best of him, Steve turned to check on the battered woman and was instead met with a sweeping leg kick that sent him sprawling. He scolded himself harshly as he fell, bringing his shield up to deflect the blasts from Strucker's gun, then rolled into a back-flip.

As the room spun before him, Cap saw that Namor and Vision had re-entered the room, and along with Ms. Marvel were laying the last two Destroyers to waste. Landing on his feet, the super soldier saw that Daniels and Strucker both saw what he had seen and together they fired their guns towards the ceiling causing debris to rain down on them.

Cap pressed forward, but a second wave of New Reich troops rolled into the room, blasting hard at Cap, Moonstar, and Deadpool.

Helplessly, Cap watched as Agent Daniels and Katarina Strucker escaped out through the smashed windows, and jumped into a waiting all-black sports car. "Ms. Marvel, after them!" he shouted.

Caroll nodded and shot away from the Destroyer towards the open window. Cap watched her go, certain she would be best able to track the speeding sports car, when three more New Destroyers appeared directly in front of her, slamming into her hard and stopping her pursuit cold.

For the next ten minutes the Avengers battled the forces of the New Reich, eventually subduing them, but not soon enough to locate Daniels and Strucker's escaping car. When the battle was over, Cap would look across the room at the several hundred people whose lives they had saved and still feel they had not done enough.

"You've got some kind of healing factor," Henry Pym remarked to prone Deadpool as he looked at the massive amount of glass embedded into the merc's back. He chose not to ask the man about the deformed skin that covered his back at this moment, but peeled off a few flakes of skin for further study.

"Yeah, what of it?" Wade Wilson asked.

"Usually, I'd imagine it's a good thing."

"Usually?"

"Your wounds have already begun to heal themselves around the glass still embedded beneath your skin, meaning that your skin is going to be ripped again as I remove all of the shards."

"Wonderful," Deadpool grimaced as the first shard was expunged. "This is what I get for playing hero for the day. Good thing I can go back to being me tomorrow."

Pym frowned. "Unlikely."

"Why do you say that?" Wilson asked through the pain of ripping flesh.

Pym hesitated, unsure if he should tell the mercenary what he learned, then figured he owed Deadpool that much. Whatever doubts Henry had about him, there was no denying that Deadpool had contributed a good deal today. Besides, he thought, it's not like all Avengers were perfect … or hadn't, at one time or another, done things a hero should never have done.

"Come on, Doc, spill it quicker than you're emptying me of blood."

Henry sighed. "Dugan is going to place you onto the Avengers roster."

"Absolutely not!" Captain America slammed his fist onto the table. "That's too much, Dugan! I don't know if you're playing the game Namor accused you of,* but I don't like whatever game you are playing."

"Listen, Cap," Dugan threw up his hands. "I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm not. But Deadpool is going to be a member of this team. Make him a provisional member, I don't care. Run him through all your Avengers hoops and head games if that makes you feel better, but I've got orders from the top of the food chain that he's to be placed on this team."

Cap ripped off his mask, trying to calm himself. "Why, Dugan? The man is a mercenary."

"Hate to burst your bubble, Steve, but the Avengers aren't exactly all model heroes. You've had plenty of ex-criminals serve over the years. Hell, Tasha is ex-KGB. She's done things that've made Nick Fury blush. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are ex-terrorists. Oh sure, nobody called them terrorists way back when, but the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants weren't above causing a little mayhem, no?" Dugan rubbed his face; he wasn't here to fight. "We've been watching this guy for a while. He's trying to change; we think joining the Avengers will encourage him not to walk away from this path he's trying to walk. Hell, you saw his back - how many shards of glass do you think he's having ripped out of him right now. He didn't have to do that."

Steve shook his head. "You still haven't answered why, Dugan. Why this particular guy? What does the United States government hope to gain from forcing him onto our roster?"

"You need him," Dugan pressed. "This is a new and dangerous age, Steve. Look, I know you don't like the mission you just came back from. I know you think it was a mission SHIELD should've handled, and you're right. I'm not going to be handing these missions to you on a regular basis. But you've battled Hydra and AIM before, and this, New Reich you said they called themselves, are apparently a new terrorist group in their tradition, and they tried to hit your front gates. If you had the Black Widow on the roster-"

"We've got Carol," Steve interjected, "and Moonstar. Both of them have had intelligence training." Steve pressed his case. "This guy, he's an outsider, Dugan. With all the trouble we've had lately, under-performing in our duties, all the mind control nonsense … the last thing we need on the roster right now is someone who's …" Steve realized it before he even finished his sentence with …"not an Avenger."

Dugan nodded, seeing the recognition in Steve's face. "How do you know there's not some after effects lingering from Dr. Amazing's tampering with your mind?"

"Still," Steve continued, wanting to fight the argument to the last, "what about brining in an Avenger who hasn't been around us these past few months? She-Hulk or the Black Knight?"

"Because they know you, Steve, and they're loyal to you. They'll protect you, forgive you for a misstep. Wade Wilson has none of that baggage. He'll be able to give you, and me, accurate reports on your behavior, and if some back-door programming is still kicking around inside of you all, he's insurance to make sure nothing gets too out of hand. Try him out on a temporary basis. That's all we ask."

Reluctantly, Steve nodded.

"I am pleased," the Red Skull said to the two other guests who joined him for dinner inside his yacht: Agent Daniels and Katarina Strucker. "You both performed to the expectations of the New Reich."

"I failed the Reich," Agent Daniels said, slumping in his chair. "We lost forty-five men to the Avengers, and were able to neither kill nor capture any of them."

Beside him, Katarina smiled. "Do not be so harsh, Agent Daniels. Nearly 200 of New York City's most elite members of society were inside that ballroom and infected with Überlegen."

"And all of them," Daniels countered, "were left behind."

The Red Skull sipped on a glass of champagne. "And tomorrow, when they awaken, they shall crave Überlegen. Our agents will be around to offer them another sample, to satiate their cravings."

"And soon, Agent Daniels," Katarina continued, "they will begin to see that there is nothing wrong with feeling superior to the mongrels of the world, that the strong have every right to take whatever they can for themselves."

The Red Skull nodded. "And when that happens, the New Reich will be there for them, waiting with open arms into a secret society that they are either a part of, or an enemy against. If all of those exposed this night eventually come into our fold, we will have gained access to the richest corporations in the city: Stark Industries, Osborn Chemical, Roxxon Oil among them. Did you not notice how similar our New Destroyers were to the Guardsman armor employed at the Vault?"

"Plus the legal system," Katarina continued, nearly giddy, "and the top brokerage firms on Wall Street, the mayor's office, the state senate, and the city's film industry."

Agent Daniels shook his head, confused. "But, if I may ask, what is our goal, Red Skull? To control the world from within?"

The Red Skull scoffed. "That is a fool's game. There is no glory in controlling a world that does not know who to call master. No, Herr Daniels, we will gain our foothold and then smash the American systems completely. We seek nothing more than the enslavement of this entire planet."

"And the Avengers?" Daniels asked.

"The Avengers?" the Red Skull smiled, reaching into his pocket. "I have plans for the Avengers." The Skull placed a small container on the table and opened it, causing a bright yellow glow to wash over the room.

"What is it?" Katarina asked, leaning close.

"It cannot be," Agent Daniels said disbelieving what his eyes showed him.

"It is a shard of the Cosmic Cube," the Red Skull grinned, "and it is only the beginning of the weapons the New Reich will be able to throw at the Avengers!"

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!

Mark Bousquet

1 June 2003

Northern Bear Productions