X-Men and the Avengers: Lost and Found, Page 21

Where do you seat an eight-hundred-pound gorilla?

  Anywhere he wants.

  Like that hypothetical gorilla, the Hulk presented a vastly intimidating appearance. Contemplating Hulk’s bestial visage, Cap found it hard to remember that he and the other Avengers had come to the Hulk in search of advice and information. There seemed to be nothing inside that grotesque green frame but unending hostility and paranoia.

  If the Hulk is the best lead we have, then Wanda may have to rescue herself.

  “Hulk!” he shouted, unwilling to give up while there was the slimmest chance for success. Perhaps, against all odds, the Hulk could be made to see reason. “We just want to ask you some questions. It may be a matter of life or death!”

  Either the Hulk couldn’t hear him or didn’t care. Climbing out of the crater, he stomped toward Cyclops and Cap, his enormous fists swinging at his side. His bare feet left deep footprints in the muddy soil; the immense tracks made it look like Goat Island had hosted Bigfoot. The Hulk’s baleful gaze swung back and forth between the two smaller heroes, his misshapen head turning slowly atop a neck that looked thicker than any tree trunk on the isle.

  “Eeny-meeny-meiny-moe,” he rumbled, louder than the Falls or Storm’s deafening thunder, reaching the last syllable at the same time that his malignant gaze settled on Cyclops. “You lose, Cyke,” he announced, then lunged at the mutant leader.

  Cyclops fought back with his eyebeams, which shot from his visor before the Hulk took one step toward him. The beams barely slowed the Hulk, who waded through the coruscating red energy like it was nothing more than a stiff breeze. A backhanded slap sent Cyclops flying through the air, his crimson eyebeams trailing behind him like the tail of a comet. Looking on, Cap feared that Cyclops would be flung off the small island entirely, ending up in the raging river, but instead he smashed into the side of a tree with considerable force. His eyebeams shut off abruptly as his body crumpled onto the ground.

  Is he out cold? Cap wondered. The sudden cessation of the crimson beams suggested that the X-Man couldn’t keep his eyes open.

  But the Hulk wasn’t through with Cyclops yet. He stalked toward the downed mutant, smacking one of his huge fists into the palm of his other hand. From the look of him, Cap doubted that the Hulk intended to administer first aid to his vanquished foe; the Hulk’s idea of CPR probably involved pounding the victim’s ribs to powder, and then smashing what was left.

  Not if I have anything to say about it, Cap resolved. It did not strike him as at all odd, or even ironic, to go to the aid of a man he had just fought to a standstill. No matter what the X-Man’s motives were, however misguided they might be, nobody deserved to be beaten while they were down.

  And the sooner the Hulk learned that, the better.

  “Leave that man alone!” Cap yelled. He hurled his shield with all his strength and it flew like a discus at the back of the Hulk’s head, bouncing off his thick skull. Cap reached out with a gloved hand and the shield slid back into his grip, a move that felt as natural to him as breathing. After fifty years of hard-fought combat, during which he had consistently refused to carry a gun, the shield had become more than just a tool; it was a part of him.

  He never expected the shield to hurt the Hulk—a cruise missile couldn’t do that—but he did hope to get the brute’s attention, distracting him from Cyclops’s fallen form. After that... well, Cap figured he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. Taking on an outraged Hulk was just a chance he’d have to take; after all, he hadn’t gotten through World War II by playing it safe.

  Bouncing the metal disk off the Hulk’s cranium had the desired result. The Hulk looked back over his shoulder, glowering at Captain America, who pointed an accusing finger at the monstrous green giant.

  ‘ ‘I always knew you were a savage, Hulk, but I never thought you were a bully. If you’re so eager to smash someone, why don’t you try someone who can fight back.” Looking past the Hulk, Cap saw Cyclops stirring upon the mucky ground. Since he couldn’t let the Hulk harm Cyclops before the X-Man had a chance to recover, Cap decided to throw his shield once more for good measure. The weapon sped through the air, on course to hit the Hulk right between the eyes.

  Moving with surprising speed, however, the Hulk spun around and caught the shield with both hands, his awesome strength easily overcoming the projectile’s momentum.

  “Hah!” he chortled maliciously. “Lose your little toy, didya?” He held up the brightly-colored shield, inspecting it, then twirled it atop a salami-sized forefinger. “This antique belongs in the Smithsonian. Too bad it will never get there—in one piece, that is!”

  The historic shield looked alarmingly small in the Hulk’s ample hands. He grabbed the rim on both sides, clearly intending to bend the metal shield in two.

  “Say good-bye to your Yankee Doodle Dandy,” he taunted Captain America, who looked on silently, betraying not a sign of anxiety except for the narrowing of his eyes. Cap held his breath, crossing his arms atop his chest as he watched the Hulk test his matchless brawn against the ancient shield.

  You may be surprised, he thought confidently.

  As Cap expected, bending the shield, let alone breaking it, proved more difficult than the Hulk must have anticipated. Muscles that could easily tear apart an armored truck strained against the lightweight metal disk. Distended veins and tendons protruded beneath taut green skin. A painful grimace contorted the Hulk’s face as he exerted ever more of his renowned super-strength, his face darkening to a deeper shade of green, with no discernible results.

  Irresistible force that he was, the Hulk had finally met a genuinely immovable object. As far as Cap knew, no power on earth (or elsewhere) could damage his shield, which was composed of a unique experimental alloy whose exact composition had been lost for decades. S.H.I.E.L.D. had tried for years to duplicate the one-of-a-kind shield, but their best scientists had never succeeded at the task. Neither had Hydra, A.I.M., Zodiac, or any other terrorist group with access to too many brilliant minds and too much advanced equipment. Like the legendary Super-Soldier Formula that had first endowed Captain America with his extraordinary vigor and agility, the secret of his shield had disappeared into the hazy recesses of history. But the shield’s phenomenal durability remained, as the Hulk was now founding out.

  Huffing breathlessly, the tip of an emerald tongue protruding from the comer of his mouth, the Hulk slammed the shield down onto his knee, trying strenuously to break it over his leg. Overlapping layers of muscles rippled along his arms and across his shoulders as he hunched over the indestructible shield, refusing to accept defeat.

  “This is impossible!” he snarled. “There’s nothing I can’t smash. Nothing!”

  That’s what the Axis powers thought, too, Captain America recalled, but American ingenuity and perseverance proved them wrong. If there was one thing he had learned over the years, it was something that tyrants and bullies almost never seemed to understand: that there was more to life than raw, naked power. Maybe the Hulk will figure that out. .. someday.

  At the moment, the Hulk was just growing madder, and stronger, by the minute, but still the shield would not yield. Radioactive perspiration drenched his verdant flesh, and his mighty arms quivered with the unimaginable strain, yet the circular shield kept its shape. His huge knuckles turned greenish white where they pressed against the edge of the shield, until, releasing an enormous gasp, the Hulk abandoned his struggle, the shield looking just as pristine and undamaged as it had been when he first snatched out of the air.

  “Get this miserable thing out of my sight!” he bellowed, his chest heaving, and cast the invincible shield into the sky. Cap’s heart fell as he watched his trusty weapon fly out of reach, becoming nothing more than a faint red-white-and-blue speck against the dark gray storm clouds.

  Tracking the shield’s rapid ascent, he let his attention momentarily shift away from the frustrated Hulk. A potentially fatal mistake. Before he realized what was happening, a gigantic green hand came rushing a
t his face.

  Careless! the Star-Spangled Avenger castigated himself a heartbeat before the hand hit him like a chartreuse meteor.

  His boots lost all contact with the earth as the blow propelled him across the island, leaving him stunned and blurry-eyed. Even after he hit the ground, he kept moving at a bobsled clip, skidding on his back through the mud and the rocks, only his blue chain mail tunic keeping his flesh from being flayed to the bone. Finally, he slowed to a stop, his head still ringing from the blow. His jaw ached and a tooth felt cracked. He tried to focus, but dark spots encroached on his vision, nibbling away at the sky above him. He felt his consciousness slipping away... so that he was barely aware of the two vicious hands that roughly lifted his battered body from the mud and raised it high into the air.

  As though from very far away, he heard the endless waters of Niagara crashing over the Falls.

  “Good Lord,” Colonel Lopez whispered, peering through his binoculars at the scene upon the island. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Captain America, the very embodiment of the American spirit, was clutched in the grip of the monstrous Hulk, who held the defeated hero high above his head, roaring in triumph. The Star-Spangled Avenger, who had defended liberty for as long as the veteran military man could remember, was stretched lifelessly between the Hulk’s unnaturally enlarged fists. The colonel couldn’t even tell if Cap was still alive.

  He has to be! Lopez thought. Captain America can’t be dead. It’s unthinkable!

  “Colonel,” Lieutenant Russo said, equally transfixed by the heart-stopping drama unfolding before them. He lowered his own binoculars. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  I’m open to suggestions, the colonel thought. He started to open his mouth to reply, only to see something that stole his voice away.

  All hope evaporated as the murderous Hulk, not content to brandish the fallen Avenger like a grotesque trophy, pitched Captain America off the island with the same force that he had hurled massive boulders less than half an hour ago. Lopez stared in utter horror as Captain America tumbled through the air toward the American Falls—and a gruesome death upon the rocks below!

  Sniktl

  The sound of Logan’s claws escaping their sheathes was the first indication Rogue had that her stricken teammate might be awaking from the coma her own powers had induced in him.

  Thank goodness! she thought. Wolverine had been out cold for at least an hour or two, long enough for the heightened senses and healing abilities she had leeched from him to fade away. She’d been afraid that their faceless tormentor had done something terrible to Logan while he was in a weakened state, deprived of his special recuperative powers.

  “Wolvie?” she called out, watching his lifeless face in the mirror. “Are you all right?”

  For a long moment, he showed no sign of hearing her. Then his eyes snapped open, blazing with primal fury. Teeth bared, saliva streaming from his lips, he fought savagely against his bonds, with no better results than before. A savage growl sent shivers down Rogue’s spine. His crazed appearance shocked her; even for Wolverine, who usually lived up to his fierce namesake, he looked positively loco, like a wild animal poked and prodded into a rabid frenzy. Rogue had seen hungry ’gators that looked more civilized.

  “Logan!” she hollered, hoping to snap him out of it. “Can you hear me?” She tried to make eye contact with him in the mirror, but he didn’t seem to know her. His claws sprang in and out of his clenched fists over and over again, like some sort of involuntary spasm. His fangs

  snapped at invisible foes. “Talk to me, Logan!”

  “Wha—?” Finally, she seemed to get through to him. A hint of sanity returned to his bloodshot brown eyes. He stopped fighting against his restraints. ‘ ‘Rogue ... is that

  you?”

  His claws retracted into his hands and stayed there. Rogue breathed a sigh of relief. Logan was coming back to normal; she wasn’t alone anymore. “Ah’m here,” she assured him. “How you doin’, Wolvie? You okay?”

  The metal band across his throat kept him from nodding, but he managed to meet her eyes at last. “I think so,” he said slowly, still a trace of a growl in his voice. “Sorry to give you a fright, kid. Nothin’ personal. I was just... someplace else.” .

  “The vat?” she guessed. Hellish memories of floating helplessly in that tank full of liquid, breathing through a respirator while molten adamantium poured into her bones, lingered in her mind. It seemed like a bizarre nightmare now. Had Wolverine actually endured that ghastly experience for real?

  Judging from the somber look on his face, apparently so. “Picked up on that, didya?” he said gruffly. “My apologies, kid. That’s nothing I’d want anybody else to go through.” He glared angrily at the sterile test chamber surrounding them; Rogue decided she wouldn’t want to be the guilty party behind these experiments when Wolverine got his claws into him or her. “This whole screwy setup reminds me too much of that other place—that’s gotta be why you got hit with those particular memories. I keep having flashbacks to the bad old days.” He gave himself a searching look in the mirror, perhaps taking note of his red-streaked eyes or the flecks of foam still clinging to his chin. “Can’t say it’s helping my self-control any.”

  Rogue couldn’t blame him, not if he’d really suffered through the nightmare of the tank. She felt awful for invading his privacy, like she’d accidentally stumbled onto one of his most intimate and traumatic secrets. “Logan,” she whispered sheepishly, “you know ah didn’t want to do that to ya.”

  “We can spend the whole day apologizin’ to each other, Rogue, and it won’t get us any closer to findin’ a way out here. From where I’m sittin’, you got nothin’ to be sorry for.” A bushy black eyebrow lifted as another thought occurred to him. “Tell me the truth, kid. Did they test you the same way they tested me?”

  “Uh-huh,” Rogue admitted. How could she forget the blades slicing into her flesh, the red-hot laser stripping away her skin? The torture instruments had been powerful enough to overcome even her own natural invulnerability. Thanks to Logan’s amazing healing powers, no scars or bums remained on her much-abused body, but the whole grisly exercise had been one of the most sadistic ordeals she’d ever had to endure. “It was pretty bad, as I guess you know, but it stopped when your healing factor went away.”

  “Sounds like we’ve both got some debts to settle,” Logan said darkly. He looked past her to the sarcophagus to her right. “What about the Witch?” he asked. “How’s she holding up?”

  “Ah’m not sure,” Rogue confessed. “They’re doin’ somethin’ to her, ah think, but ah’m not sure what.” The blindfolded Avenger had seemed caught up in her own private struggle ever since Rogue managed to shake off the last vestiges of Wolverine’s personality and powers, “She just keeps whisperin’ the same thing over and over

  Something ’bout keepin’ away the black, whatever that means.”

  Even now, Rogue heard the other woman chanting hoarsely, “Not the black, not the black, not the black...” The Scarlet Witch was obviously being subjected to some sort of ordeal. She was breathing hard, her chest heaving like she was running the last leg of a marathon. Her voice sounded exhausted. Rogue could smell her sweat and fatigue. “Not the black, not the black ...”

  A momentary flash of resentment surged through Rogue. How come the Witch was getting off easy, with some sort of fancy psychological torture, while she and Logan got literally cut up and burned? Why did that snooty Avenger rate special treatment? The anger passed as Rogue realized she was reacting irrationally. It wasn’t Wanda’s fault that their unknown captors had reserved a different torment for her. Besides, whatever the Witch was going through right now, it was no picnic, that was for sure.

  “See what you mean,” Logan muttered, his ears lifting a tad. Recalling the extraordinary senses she had so recently borrowed, Rogue figured that Wolverine could smell and hear the Avenger’s distress better than she could. “Hey, Witch ... Wanda
!” he shouted. “You still with us?” When she didn’t answer, he called out again. “Pagin’ the Scarlet Witch. Sound off if you can.”

  “Be quiet!” Wanda yelled vehemently, acknowledging her fellow prisoners for the first time in hours. There was an unmistakable edge of desperation in her voice. “Don’t distract me!”

  It was too late, however. The damage had been done. Wanda let out an agonized scream as her body convulsed; it looked to Rogue like the other woman was being electrocuted. The Witch’s back arched as much as her restraints allowed, then she sagged limply within the wired sarcophagus.

  “She’s out cold,” Logan pronounced. “I can tell by her heartbeat.” Rogue figured that the electrifying shock, combined with exhaustion, had caused the mutant Avenger to pass out.

  Even in her unconscious state, however, Wanda could not escape her trials. Her lips kept murmuring the same pitiful refrain, “Not the black, not the black ...”

  What did they do to her? Rogue wondered. Whoever they are.

  She had only a few seconds to sympathize with the Scarlet Witch’s cryptic plight before her own steel casket began moving again, this time toward the Witch instead of Wolverine. Rogue’s sudden fears were confirmed when the right wall of the sarcophagus slid downward in tandem with the left wall of Wanda’s coffin.

  “No!” she protested loudly. “Not again! Not with her!” Not content to have forced Rogue to steal Logan’s mind and powers, if only temporarily, their unknown jailers clearly now intended to have her absorb the Scarlet Witch’s essence as well. Rogue flinched inwardly at the prospect. Wanda already hates me for what I did to Carol Danvers, she despaired. Now I have to do the same thing to her! She could only pray that the transference would not prove as permanent as it had in Ms. Marvel’s case, but how could she prevent that when she didn’t have any control over what was going to happen—and for how long?

  Rogue had often wished for a mutant power she could turn on and off at will, like Storm or Iceman had. Hopelessly, she yearned for that impossible blessing again as concealed mechanisms carried her ungloved hand closer to the Scarlet Witch. The curved metal shell enclosing the Witch’s left hand rolled to one side, revealing Wanda’s five fingers resting within a hand-shaped depression; with the Avenger unconscious and unable to employ her mutant sorcery, the unseen experimenter had obviously judged it safe to partially liberate her hand, although a metal band still stretched across her slender wrist. Rogue knew too well the danger of exposing the Witch’s warm skin to her own thirsty touch.