AVENGERS

# 448 – September, Year 4

Power Loss, Day One: Honeycomb

written by Mark Bousquet

original conception of PowerLoss by Scott Harris

MARVEL EARTH – EMPIRE STATE BUILDING – AFTERNOON

Captain America braced himself for impact. Hurtling out of the sky was the lifeless body of the Super Adaptoid. A lesser man would have dove out of the way; there was certainly enough time to move to safety, but a lesser man would’ve been thinking of himself and not the potential people that the Adaptoid’s body would slam into once it hurtled past.

Cap held his shield aloft, crouching low. Get under it, he told himself. Deflect it upwards and back. Wait for it … wait for it … just as it reached him, Cap pushed his shield upwards.

SLAM! The Adaptoid’s heavy body crashed into the shield, arcing upwards and back, like a whale jumping out of, and then falling back into, the ocean. It landed with a thud on the roof, cracking the rooftop surface.

Had he seen the Adaptoid’s body land on the roof, Cap would’ve been thankful, but he hadn’t seen it.

He’d been knocked off the edge of the roof.

Falling, Captain America looked for options. He needed one fast – the lower roof was coming up at him quickly. He could survive the fall, he determined, but it would hurt like hell. Moving quickly, he moved his shield to his feet, hooking his boots under the leather straps. He’d used this maneuver before, knowing that the vibranium in the shield would help negate the hard blow of the landing.

The trick was – it had to be done perfectly.

As the roof rushed up to him, Cap knew this was a dangerous maneuver. He knew people thought it was easy using the shield, but it took practice. Hours and hours of practice. That was the side of the Avengers the public never got to see. The hours Clint spent shooting arrows, the hours Pym spent in the lab, the hours Carol spent honing her flight skills – both natural and behind the controls of a Quinjet. This was a move Cap didn’t practice as much as hand-to-hand combat maneuvers. And when he did he never replicated the move from this height.

Steve tried to guess the height – thirty feet … twenty feet … ten feet …

THWIPTHWIPPTHWIPTHWIPTHWIP!!!!!

Cap found his descent stopped in a sticky set of webbing.

"Should I have done that?" a voice called to him. "Or were you looking to do one of those dramatic saves only you can do?"

Cap craned his neck to look below him at the small lower roof. "I appreciate the save, Spider-Man. Now cut me loose."

CRA-KA-THOOM!

Spidey and Cap looked skyward, up through the honeycombs and their wildly snapping tendrils of electiricity to see Thor, the Asgardian Thunder God, calling the lightning.

"That’s not going to work," Spider-Man said matter-of-factly as he freed Cap’s shield.

"Why not?" Cap asked, laying still so Spider-Man could hack him free.

"The golden spheres are draining power," Spidey answered. "All kinds of power. From what I can tell, so long as the power is somehow energy based, the golden spheres siphon it off. That’s why I can use my webbing – it’s mechanical. Can’t crawl up the side of this building, though. At least, not for any consistent length of time."

They looked skyward as Thor sent lightning bolts slamming into several of the golden spheres that dotted the city’s skyline. The lightning had no real effect as the spheres sucked the bolts right into their core.

Spidey cut away the last of the webbing that held Cap in place and Steve dropped to the roof. "It’s a good thing he’s above the honeycomb," Spidey explained, "but he should hurry up and get to the ground. The most severe drains seem to occur with direct contact, but the siphoning effects are strongest heading towards the ground for some reason."

"Is Thor making those spheres stronger by hitting them with energy?" Cap asked.

Spider-Man shook his head. "Doesn’t appear that way. The spheres have been enlarging at a steady rate. First, a yellow and blue sphere appear. They grow larger until they finally slam into each other, leaving a golden sphere in its place. The golden sphere then grows, floating upwards until it joins the others. Notice how the spheres emerge from down near the ground and float upward, but they don’t go any higher than they are?" Spidey asked, pointing outwards and upwards. "Once they reach the height of the others, they start to grow at the same rate as the spheres in the sky."

"Will the process replicate?" Cap asked. "Will these spheres slam into one another like the blue and yellow spheres did?"

Spidey shook his head. "I don’t know, but we’re about to find out. Look."

Several blocks away from them, the electrical tendrils of five spheres flashed out, connecting all sides of that particular honeycomb. Once connected in the five-sided formation, the tendrils began to hum and glow and instead of disappearing as the other tendrils did, they began to feed energy into each other, making the connection permanent.

ZZZZZZNNNNNNNNNNZZZZZZZZNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!

Spidey had to yell in Cap’s ear for the Avenger to hear him, "The tendrils lock on in that specific formation! The deployment of spheres looked random but we can see now that they’re forming a pattern! As spheres rise to their maximum height, they’re locking into place! It looks like that once the electric tendrils of five spheres connect, they do whatever it is they’re going to do!"

Cap, Spider-Man, and above them, Thor, watched the five-sided honeycomb flare brightly and a powerful wave spread between them, forming a solid wall of energy that filled the interior of the formation.

ZZZZZZZNNNNNNNNZZZZZZZZZZFFFFFWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!

The energy wall flashed once, brightly, sending a ripple of sparks out across the sky. A beam of golden light fired down all the way to the ground, keeping the exact size and shape of the honeycomb. In the path of the light was the Daily Bugle building.

The Daily Bugle went immediately dark.

Spider-Man made to jump off the roof, but Captain America stuck out his hand, holding him to the roof. "Your powers!" Cap yelled.

Spider-Man shook his head. "Back for the moment! Gotta risk they won’t kick out!"

Cap frowned, but nodded. "Make short swings! Stay close enough to the rooftops that you can survive a fall!"

Spidey nodded. "Good luck!"

Cap watched Spider-Man leap from the building, a web arcing from his wrists. He turned to enter the building, but allowed himself another peek at the sky as a golden sphere rose from beneath him, headed towards its location in the honeycomb.

EARTH 1000 – SECRET SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY HEADQUARTERS – AFTER MIDNIGHT

Edison Bell was strapped into a large machine. His body was nearly gone, lost beneath the glow of white energy.

The SSS and Edwin’s parents buzzed around him, moving to the various control panels and devices that lined the walls of this smaller cavern. The plan was simple in design but difficult to execute. The SSS had built this large machine to act as a large relay station. They knew that across the globe at this moment other SSS groups were readying their own machines. Edwin’s mother and father alone had no buttons to press, no screens to monitor. They only had to watch the death of their son, a sacrifice made to save the world.

It was twenty years ago, a day after Edwin’s birth, that the SSS had come to them with the news their son was a mutant. Not only a mutant – and thus fated to governmentally-sanctioned genetic alteration – but potentially the most powerful mutant ever born. The Alpha Mutant, they called him. The SSS told them they could save Edwin, that SSS operatives would help shield and protect him until the moment was at hand that Edwin could help jump start an entire planet.

It had not been an easy decision – the Bells knew of the stories of the horror their son would be subjected to the later his mutation was discovered by the United Nations, but when the SSS told them about the Shy-Ar herding programs, they agreed to put their son under SSS protection.

Had they known Edwin was fated to die in the process … they shuddered to think what their decision would have been.

Every day the Bells went to work they looked to the sky above them, to the abandoned monorails, and dead skyscrapers and steeled themselves to what they were doing to their son with the knowledge that the world would one day come back to life because of him.

And then, ten years ago, Atom 8 had come to the Bells and told them that the SSS intended to sacrifice their son’s life. By this time, the Bells were committed the SSS program to restart the Earth. They knew the danger the Shy-Ar and the United Nations had placed them all in.

They knew also that Edwin was well past the age where surgery would allow him a normal life. His life would effectively end whichever path they chose, and the Bells decided they would choose real death over a lobotomized death, knowing that real death brought with it the possibility of a renewed planet.

Atom 8 had more revelations. He told them that the plan of the Secret Scientific Society would only do so much, that the war that would one day come to Earth would destroy the Earth unless they could access more power. Edwin could restart the energy-based technologies on this world, but he could not save it alone. The real power of the Earth, the power that would save them, was the power of mutants, and the Shy-Ar had been herding mutants away for fifty years. Even if all technology was restored, Edwin alone could not give them fifty years of mutations.

"But," Atom 8 had told them in confidence, "there was a way."

"How?" Mr. Bell had asked.

"We can steal the power from another world, a world that hasn’t been held back."

Unbeknownst to Atom 1, 3, and 7, Atom 8, the other members of the SSS and the Bells had built hidden features into the relay stations. When Edwin’s power surged through the machines and smashed the State Computer, thus freeing the stores of energy the United Nations had been holding in reserve across the globe, the secret program would activate and Edwin’s power would reach out across the multiverse to fuel Atom 8’s energy spheres on that distant, alternate Earth. They had wondered, of course, how Atom 8 could get the spheres to the other world, but he had convinced them that other allies from alien races that had the power to do it, would do it, and all of the power of that world would be sucked back across the void and fuel this world in ways that energy alone could never do.

"It will be like watching God create the world anew," Atom 8 promised and the Bells – disillusioned with Atom 1, desiring the immortality of memory for their son as well as their continued life of the world – agreed.

The eyes of the Bells were on their son’s glowing white body.

"We are ready, Atom 1!" Atom 8 called. "Start the engines! Let us ignite this world!"

Atom 1 nodded, pulling the final switch that he had purposely made to resemble the switch he had seen as a boy, in a movie, that Dr. Frankenstein used to breath life into his creature.

The connection was made and Edwin screamed in total agony. White energy flowed into the machine and was shot through the cavern’s tunnels.

"How will we know if it works?" Mrs. Bell asked her husband.

"Look to the monitors on the far wall. If they come to life, it’s working."

All of the eyes of the SSS were on the monitors, that flickered almost immediately to life.

Edwin’s energy burst forth from the ground and rocketed to the State Computer. The State Computer, fifty years earlier, had been the city of New York. The citizens of the city were ordered out, and the entire city was refashioned as the one great computer that was allowed to remain. Edwin’s energy slammed into the city, covering it in its deadly glow, then fired outward, covering the globe within minutes, bathing all the world in radiant light as it freed the stored energy the United Nations had kept from the people of the world.

The energy of the Alpha Mutant began to coalesce into bolts of lightning as it mixed with the freed energy of the world.

The Secret Scientific Society watched decades of planning come to fruition. Machines long dead began to hum to life.

"It’s working!" Atom 1 screamed in joy.

"It’s alive," Atom 8 smiled menacingly to himself. To the group, he yelled, "It’s time!"

Atom 1 and 3 looked at him confused and then their hearts were pierced with daggers and they understood that they had been betrayed.

As their bodies fell to the ground, Atom 8 announced, "Initiate phase two. Drain the alternate Earth to its core."

MARVEL EARTH – AVENGERS MANSION – PYM’S LABORATORY – DUSK

"Any ideas?" Henry Pym looked up at the monitors to see the images of Hank McCoy, Tony Stark, and Dane Whitman looking back at him. Behind Pym, the lifeless body of the Vision lay flat and motionless on a table.

"A few of the X-Men are down," McCoy replied. "Their powers have been drained off of them, turning them into ordinary humans."

Stark jumped in, "None of my machines have proven impervious to the effects. I’ve got back-up generators based on every kind of energy I know and none of them have proven successful. The only devices that continue to work are manual, but even then, the energy generated is quickly lost. We’ve got to-"

"Damnit!" Pym swore as the video feed to Stark and Whitman were lost.

"Dr. Pym," the Beast said. "Look out behind you."

Pym turned to see a golden sphere hovering by the Vision. His eyes darted to the side cabinet where a small storage of Pym Particles were kept. "Beast," he said, "I think I’ve got an idea."

MARVEL EARTH – AVENGERS MANSION – DUSK

The face of Reed Richards looked down on the Avengers from their wall monitor. Or, at least, the Avengers who were not out of commission: Captain America, Ms. Marvel, Dani Moonstar, Thor, and Namor. On the level below them, the powerless Vision and the Pym Particle-deprived Henry Pym waited for orders. In the past half-hour the energy had cut on three times, severing the connection. The honeycomb was growing, extending well past the outskirts of New York City. On a separate monitor, they could see the effects growing. Nearly one-third of all land on the planet was now covered by the honeycomb.

A grimace came across the face of Thor as Namor appeared to ignore Reed Richards, focusing instead on the honeycomb map.

"The honeycombing appears to be centered around major cities," Reed explained, "though there are pockets forming elsewhere. Each cluster grows until it connects to other clusters. All evidence points to an eventual global honeycomb, but I can’t be certain. I’m focusing primarily on what the golden spheres are doing, and how we can shut them down."

"My god," Dani said, shaking her head. "Tell me this is the kind of thing the Avengers and Fantastic Four are used to dealing with on a regular basis."

"Hardly," Reed Richards answered for them. "We are dealing here with potential consequences on a level unmatched in history."

Deadpool turned to Thor, "Is he just being dramatic?"

"Hardly, young one," Thor replied, eyeing Namor. The Atlantean had turned from the honeycomb map and started towards the exit of the room. "The danger Reed Richards speaks of is indeed great," he said to Deadpool, his eyes on Namor’s back. "Yon world depends on energy for survival. There are millions of people in hospitals right now depending on energy for their very life. Should the power be taken from those buildings …"

"Only one hospital, so far, has gone down," Ms. Marvel reported. "A hospital in Mexico City. But Cap," she said, her voice full of dread, "the White House has been telling hospitals to get their back-up generators ready. They won’t work. They’re still energy. The golden spheres will still drain them. We’ve got to come up with a different plan to save them."

Reed interjected, "I’ve placed a call to my father. He’s taken up residence inside Limbo. We’re working on a plan to allow the patients of the hospitals to escape into his protection." Reed frowned.

"What is it?" Dani asked, noting the concern on Reed’s face.

"He hasn’t replied, yet," Reed answered honestly. "We can’t be certain he’s going to help."

"I have a possible solution."

All eyes in the room turned to face Namor, Prince of Atlantis.

"Speak thy words," Thor commanded.

Namor pointed to the honeycomb map. "I think we can all agree that if we do not stop this … honeycombing effect, all life will be lost."

"Geez," Deadpool whispered to himself, "depress much?"

"The goal then becomes to buy as much as possible for the weak and sickly who are dependent on machines for life." Namor walked closer to point directly to specific parts of the honeycomb map. "The safest location is obvious, is it not?"

Reed nodded, "The oceans. I should have seen that. I’ve been so focused on-"

"We all have our shortcomings, Richards," Namor said. "The honeycombing over the oceans correspond directly to land masses. Evidence, as Richards suggests, points to the conclusion that all of the globe will be covered by the honeycombing, but over the oceans the process moves slower."

"We’ll never get everyone onto a ship – even if the Navy has enough ships," Ms. Marvel countered.

Namor turned to the woman to whom he had recently been involved romantically. "I have already placed a call to Atlantis. All of our ships have been deployed to the eastern seaboard of the United States and the western seaboard of Europe. We cannot do it all, of course."

Cap turned to Dani, "Get to Dugan. Tell him we need all the ships the Navy can spare. Deploy SHIELD agents to assist in this. Reed," Cap turned back to the monitor, "if your father can assist away from the eastern seaboard-"

Reed’s image cut out as the Mansion was lost to a power outage.

Deadpool leapt to the side as a golden sphere emerged from the floor, floating upwards.

"Namor," Cap ordered, "get to the oceans. I don’t know what effect the energy drain will have on your powers and I don’t want to find out." Namor nodded and left quickly, his eyes looking warily at the rising sphere. "Carol," Cap said, turning. "Carol!"

The body of Ms. Marvel floated upwards, drawn to the golden sphere. "Help," she moaned.

Dani Moonstar dove across the room.

"Hold!" Cap yelled at Moonstar, but it was too late. The young mutant’s body slammed into Carol’s, but instead of saving Ms. Marvel, Dani found her own powers draining into the sphere. "Thor!"

The Thunder God moved quickly, grabbing both women into his arms and walking away from the sphere. "Nnnng!" he strained against the energy drain.

Cap could see it wasn’t working. The powers of Ms. Marvel and Dani were still being taken from them.

"Can we risk teleportation?" Deadpool asked from the other side of the sphere.

Cap shook his head, "I don’t know."

"No!" Henry Pym yelled, bursting into the room. His eyes were locked on the image of Thor – Carol in one arm, Dani in the other – walking away from the golden sphere, but the powers of each still being visibly drawn to the glowing ball. "Cap, my Pym Particles, they’re gone! Literally gone. These golden spheres don’t just drain the power, they’re sending it somewhere!"

"Where?" Cap asked.

"I think … I think it’s sending all of our energy into another dimension!" Henry yelled. "If Deadpool tries to teleport, we could lose him and anyone he’s holding down into the alternate dimension … or wherever it is the energy is being drained to!"

"How come Thor isn’t being affected?" Deadpool asked as the Thunder God moved the two women out into the hallway.

"My guess," Pym answered, "is that bodies are only drained to their natural state. Thor is naturally strong, so he doesn’t appear to be as affected, but if he were to use his hammer …"

All eyes went to the door as Thor was forced backwards into the room. "Captain," he grunted, "mine efforts are futile. The powers of these Avengers are still being drained. If I push any harder, I shall snap their rib cages."

"Let me risk it," Deadpool implored.

"No!" Cap ordered. "We can’t risk losing all three of you!"

"Then let me attempt a ‘port without them to test it."

Captain America shook his head, "Stand down, Deadpool. That’s an order."

"We can’t just sit here!" Deadpool scoffed. "What’s the worst that could happen? I get sucked down the rabbit hole and find out where all the power is going!"

Pym interjected, "Or you could get broken apart into your atomic parts and be completely disassembled! Or you could cause a backwash that drags everyone here down with you!"

Deadpool looked sideways at Pym, "Thanks for the cheery thought."

The golden sphere flared brightly, sending a shockwave of energy out across the room and knocking all of the Avengers to the ground. With a rush of air, the sphere then sucked inwards, drawing out the energy based powers of everyone in the room. Dani was caught in the updraft, and her body shot across the room towards the sphere.

Deadpool looked to Cap but the Avengers leader had been knocked too far away. Without a second thought, Deadpool ran towards Moonstar, leaping at the last second to push the woman’s body out of the draft.

It worked. Dani’s body crashed to the floor.

"Just my luck," Deadpool mumbled as it was his body that was now trapped in the updraft. He turned, seeing the sphere rushing towards him, and risked teleportation. Touching the switch on his belt, Deadpool triggered the teleportation device. He knew instantly something was wrong. Instead of the usual effect of ‘porting, Deadpool felt as if he was ripped apart. Instead of exiting away from the sphere, he was drawn into it. The last image he had was the look of horror on Henry Pym’s face and then was sucked into the rabbit hole.

His broken down body was sent flying across a yellow tunnel of energy. With him, he could make out various power signatures – he couldn’t tell what they were (or who they belonged to, he thought with a sense of unease) but he could make out the differences.

For several long moments he was shot through the tunnel until, at last, he burst out a white opening and into another physical world. Concentrating on nothing else, Deadpool felt his body come back together and he landed with a thud onto a crowded city street.

He looked around to see what effect his arrival had.

He saw, with some regret, it didn’t have much.

Everyone around him had their eyes looking this way and that as a white cloud of energy floated in the sky above them. A flash of darkness would come from inside the white cloud, and then a colored bolt of energy would be let loose. Deadpool watched a green bolt of energy hurtle towards the ground and slam into a kid that was standing next to him.

The kid screamed, and Deadpool watched in disgust as the kid’s body began to bubble and boil and …

"Turn green?" he asked no one in particular.

The kid turned, his eyes focusing on Deadpool. "Timmy … Timmy …"

"Oh great," Deadpool wise-cracked, walking towards the kid, "I’ve been sent to the South Park universe."

"Timmy … SMASH!"

The kid slammed his fist into Deadpool, sending the would-be Avenger hurtling across the city square and smashing through the window of a street-side café. "Ouch," he said, picking himself up. Shaking himself off, he ventured back to the window. "This is not good," he said. Looking out across the city, he could see hundreds of people who’d been hit with similar bolts of energy. Not all were the Hulk (or She-Hulk), thankfully, but Deadpool could instantly pick out people imbued with the powers of various heroes and villains of Earth. People crawled up the sides of buildings, or had laser beams shooting out of their eyes, or were bursting into flame.

Even worse – if that were possible – he noted that they were all panicking.

Whatever it was that was happening, Deadpool could see that these people were just as surprised as the Avengers had been.

EARTH 1000 – SECRET SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY HEADQUARTERS

The SSS watched as energy poured into their world, draining away from the alternate Earth Atom 8 had chosen as a source world.

Strapped into the machine, Edison Bell’s body clung weakly to life, still pulsing with a white energy, but fading fast.

"I have an idea," Atom 8 mused aloud. "There’s no guarantee, of course, that no matter how much energy and power we pour into our world that it will be enough to defeat the Shy-Ar or Tekree."

"There never was going to be a guarantee," Edison Bell’s father remarked.

"No, but there is one way, I believe, to guarantee our safety."

"What’s that?" Atom 10 asked.

Atom 8 smiled, "If our world is now filled with energy, and the alternate Earth is drained … I would imagine twelve super-powered humans could live there as Kings."

"You mean to go to that alternate world," Mrs. Bell asked, "and leave ours behind?"

Atom 8 smiled. "Yes, I think that is exactly what I mean to do."

In the darkness of a tunnel behind them, Atom 7, all but forgotten, watched, and listened, and tried to make sense of all that had gone wrong.

Power Loss to be continued …