Wakanda

All was good in the jungle, though it was becoming less a jungle each day. The humans slaved, and the seven watched on with empty eyes, their machine-parts shining in the sun. Calm and still in Vision’s country.

The seven walked through the village of vibranium huts and the converted – the citizens – watched on with programmed awe. They shared one mind, free of true emotion, all of them. But the seven were their Avengers, and they were special.

“Five o’clock perimeter check commencing,” the Wasp said, her dark chocolate skin exposed readily to the sun. The rest was covered in gleaming vibranium and skimpy cloth.

Captain America responded, “Commence,” and she was off on paper-thin wings of metal. The six went on.

They walked shoulder-to-shoulder – more of a march, in perfect unison. Even Quicksilver sauntered at rhythm. This is what happened when things were peaceful: they marched.

Past each hut, where no converted man, woman, or child had anything to fear. They were one, and obeyed all of the Vision’s laws and commands. Left alone, they were wind-up toys. The six marched past a line of slaves, all-flesh and disgusting, carrying vibranium. Precious vibranium. They marched on the beach, and they marched through the clearings, just to show that they were there, and that they were the Avengers.

This is what happened when all was well, and all was – until the calm voice, or automation, of the Wasp sounded through the mind.

Slave disturbance: northern mines, she announced. Assistance needed.

Assistance granted, Iron Man replied, sweating underneath his vibranium armor. He and Thor took to the air headed north, with Quicksilver in tow, the implants in his legs getting him there at the speed of sound.

With a look, the Captain ordered help from Giant Man. The latter grew – no pain for expanding his muscles, as pain no longer existed – to ten times his normal height and took the other into his hand. It took mere steps to arrive there. The slaves looked like insects from above.

The Captain was lowered to the scene: a number of slaves had been freed by holdovers from before the conversion. They offered little but their primitive weapons and irrational cries.

“Free!” one called. “We will be free even if it means killing you, old friends! King T’Challa would spit in disgust at this sight.”

He aimed his gun and fired a spray of bullets into Thor’s chest. The dark god walked up easily, projectiles sinking into him, and firmly took the weapon. He towered over the wild human.

“You are his toys – puppets. You are no longer Wakan—“

“Silence,” said Thor, and made sure it was so with a quick swipe of his fist.

It wasn’t a challenge, containing them – not for the Avengers. This is why they existed. Together they easily stifled the rebellion, the slaves old and newly-acquired alike on their knees in a line. The humans still working watched nervously from the corners of their eyes.

What do we do, sir? Captain America asked the mind. It responded:

Show them what happens when they don’t conform. Teach them a lesson – I’m busy with my own.

Yes, sir.

It would be so, the seven knew.

The Captain went to the fiercest slave, one with wily eyes and blood on his shoulder. He looked up at the Avenger standing before him.

“You...can’t do this...” said the slave. The Captain looked down at him with the closest thing to disgust he was allowed. Metal-alloyed fingers gripped his vibranium shield tightly as he raised it high. It cast a shadow on the man.

“We can. We will,” said the Captain, the ebony patches of skin exposed through his shabby costume perspiring.

“You will break.”

The human bowed his head, closed his eyes, prepared...and nothing came. When he looked back up, the Captain was the same, but looking at his own hand.

His shield – it wouldn’t move.

“That’s enough,” said a young male voice. The seven, and the slaves, and the on looking citizens turned – and there they were, exiting a still cooling Quinjet. Justice clenched his mind harder, and the Captain’s shield bent.

He, Firestar, Captain Marvel, and Photon stood or hovered among the slaves. A blonde man emerged among them, looking much in need of rest.

Hank Pym pulled a capsule from his belt. “Now it’s a fair fight.”

The slaves felt their rebellion surge again.

The Theater

“Are you through, Simon?”

Wonder Man peered up the hovering Vision and sucked in a shuddering breath.

“Never,” he said as he struggled to regain his feet. He nearly slipped on a loose piece of flooring and found himself hunching in a crater the size of Thor’s bed. Dozens more were strewn throughout the theater – each a testament to the Vision’s superior might.

The android was merciless.

“For once in your life, Simon – don’t be a fool.”

He snapped his fingers and one of the robots came shambling onto the stage. It wore an aged, red and green version of Wonder Man’s original outfit and a jester’s hat with bells ringing and tingling through the still air.

“A fool,” said the Vision, “a court jester, someone for the gods, savants, and beautiful women to look down upon and laugh. You are a discredit even to your own pitiful race, Simon. Nothing more than a pretty boy in a pretty outfit – a muscle-bound lackey. A pathetic excuse for a—“

The ground and walls quaked slightly, a sound echoing in the distance. The room temporarily lost its menacing quality, its master faltering. Simon barely noticed.

“Shut up!” He fired himself from the crater. For a moment the face of the Vision lost its confident sneer and shining luster. Wonder Man collided with the android and battered it with all of his might. Ionic fists slammed into malleable vibranium with enough force to shatter diamonds, and for an instant it seemed as if the Vision might be beatable. Even human.

The instant passed. Simon was wrenched from the Vision and sent careening into the ground like a sack of worn clothing. Tendrils of vibranium wound their way around his body and then flowed back into their master. The other Avengers grimaced as Simon crashed and formed a new crater in the metal floor. Vision descended – perhaps to deliver the killing blow – and then paused again.

Another explosion.

“The hell is that?” Hawkeye said. Vision would have exhaled, if he needed to breathe.

“My grandfather and your friends, here to save you – destroying in the process, as you all do.”

“Pym?” Tony Stark called out from his shell. “Hank is here?” There was another explosion away from them – even greater than before. Vision winced.

“He and your teammates have been here for some time. I can feel them like insects crawling on my neck. They’re being – taken care of...”

A fourth explosion and the Vision fell to his knees with a grunt. It was pain – along with everything else, he’d learned to feel pain. But it didn’t matter. He would finish off Simon, the rest of the Avengers – even the new ones. Nothing was going to stop him. Nothing...

He looked up as the shield of Captain America crashed into his vibranium face. The shield rebounded into the hands of the freed Captain and as the Vision reformed his facial features, he noticed the other Avengers had cast off their bonds as well. His momentary lapse of control had freed them: a flaw.

“Now, Vizh,” Hawkeye said with a smirk of his own. “You gonna go down quietly? Or are we gonna take you down kickin’ and screamin’?”

The Vision stood and smiled.

“There will be screams, Barton,” the android’s eyes went dull. “But it will be you and your kind who wail like children, not I.”

“You speak with tainted tongue, Vision,” T’Challa roared. “You raped this land – turned my people into slaves. You will pay. With your life, you will pay!”

The Captain blinked. “T’Challa—”

He couldn’t finish. The room exploded to luster-life and the Avengers scattered for their lives. Tendrils, spikes, snares, blades and more of Wakanda’s vibranium uprooted itself from the floor.

“Does it ever end?” Hawkeye said. But Tony Stark knew, as power surged through his armor again. “...he’s controlling it. The vibranium is a part of him and he’s a part of it – all of it! All of the vibranium in Wakanda!”

The Jungle

Hot shrapnel tore through Jarkanga’s left arm. Of the four explosions, the last was the worst. The vibranium vats had been ruptured in the fray – the land outside the mines was rife with burning holes.

The vibranium sat heavy inside his muscle and it hurt just to move. But it didn’t matter – the Avengers were here. He didn’t want to hurt his people, but this was war. The revolution was on.

The Avengers worked swiftly, most of them silent. A dark-skinned Thor hurled himself hammer-first at Justice. Vance shut his eyes and thought. His mind pushed.

When he opened his eyes, the cyborg was there, inches away from him and frozen in mid-air.

Vance knew the real Thor would have smashed him to nothing. He tossed the imposter into the fake Quicksilver and had to restrain himself from saying, “Sorry, sir.”

“I don’t want to hurt them, Vance,” Firestar said, evading the Wasp through the air. “I mean, I can’t just throw fire at them!”

“Do what you can, Angel,” her lover said. Okay – she would. She’d use her head, like she used to. You couldn’t set street thugs on fire, not as a hero. Think.

She increased her speed, descending towards a rocky escarpment. It took dodging the electrical stings the imposter threw at her, but the Wasp followed, and—

Pull up!

Firestar looked down just in time to see the Wasp falling back from the rocks, dented, bruised, but better than burned. Just like on the street. Just like it’d been in the New...

“Never thought I’d get to lay the smackdown on Iron Man and Captain America when I joined,” Captain Marvel said hovering over his opponents – loudly, on purpose. Photon ignored him, darting around to confuse a recovered Quicksilver. Vance heard and shot him a narrow look.

“What? What—” asked the Captain. Come on, Genie, man, a voice in his head. Now’s not the time to make with the jokes.

“I thought it was good to make jokes. That’s what heroes do, right Rick?”

Not now. This – oh, man, this just isn’t the time. This is bad.

Vance jumped in and shredded Iron Man’s armor, revealing an unfed, half-human tribesman inside. “Show some respect, Marvel,” he said. Genis frowned.

“Ah, grozit.”

Rick Jones’s voice continued in Marvel’s head. The Wakandans are a proud people. Or – they were. And look at them. He looked at the former Iron Man, cold, helpless, practically dissected by Vision as he lay on the ground.

And over there.

It wasn’t just the Avengers – the converted, the citizens, had joined in. Even the children, cybernetic enhancements displayed, now stronger than grown men. A wave of slaves met them with reluctance.

They’re fighting their own people. God...

Captain Marvel fought in silence. He skimmed past a foot bigger than he was and ignored it.

Sixty feet up, another battle took place.

“You’re just hurting yourself,” Hank Pym said, grappling with hands big as houses. He and the Wakandan Giant Man wrestled above the battlefield. “Can’t you see that? Feel it? The cybernetic implants in your body – they don’t do it right. You’ll die if you—“

“Humans die.” Giant Man’s fist connected and Hank stumbled back. “Machines thrive.” He wiped blood from his lips and looked at his dark reflection.

“...that’s Vision in there, isn’t it?”

Rearing back for another blow, Giant Man said, “He is in all of us.” Hank caught it and pulled roughly, jerking the black giant to him.

“I want to talk to the Vision. Only Vision.”

A pause. Giant Man’s eyes became, if they could, even duller. Then a smile curled his dark lips, and he spoke in a tone familiar to Hank.

“Hello, grandfather. I’m somewhat preoccupied, but—“

“What have you done to these people, Vision?” Hank said, shoving Giant Man onto a ledge away from the battle below and leaping there himself.

“I’ve freed them,” Vision said through his puppet.

Something cracked in Giant Man’s jaw when Hank struck it. “I’m not here to play games.”

“But you will play. You’re playing now. Do you think I have to sit here and talk to you?”

What kind of question was—

“No. Of course I don’t. But it amuses me to see you in pain, grandfather, just as it amused you to create a machine capable of upgrading itself – capable of evil, and of creating other artificial life.”

Hank’s fists tightened, but remained at his sides. Giant Man stood, Vision continuing.

“Ultron upgraded me. I feel emotion. I realize the sickness of humanity upon this planet. And you will all be like them—“ he pointed at the cybernetic citizens below, “—as close to perfection as I can make your race. First the Avengers. Then the world.”

It was no use hitting him, Pym knew. If he had been an irrational man, he would have anyway. But he wasn’t – and he didn’t.

“I control every aspect of this island. Further – I am all the vibranium of Wakanda. I’m better than Ultron ever envisioned. You should be proud of your legacy.”

A. Rational. Man.

“Your friends are with me. Alone. I can trace your every move. I can feel your pulse through your boots and through the ground, into the vibranium deep below. Try to find us, if you like.

“Goodbye, grandfather,” said the fading tone of the Vision. Giant Man’s eyes fluttered as the presence left him. By the time he came to, Pym was gone.

“Photon!” he called, changing to normal size as he sprinted past the flood of citizens. She flew to his side and shifted from light to human. “Monica – you’re coming with me.”

“What about us?” Captain Marvel asked, straining to lift his own mob of converts.

“You’re Avengers. You can handle this. Besides—“ Pym said, gesturing to the battling slaves, “You’ve got help.”

Genis only thought for a second. Seeing the look in Pym’s eye, he nodded, and continued to fighting.

Photon flew at Hank’s side as he ran towards a compound away from the mines. “Hank,” she asked, “what’s going on? We can’t leave them there. Not like—“

“We just did. We have to,” he said. They reached the side of the building and halted. “What this is about...Monica, I need you to focus. We’re going to try something.”

She hovered, an angel of pure illumination before him, and nodded.

“When you’re in your light form – you always retain your human shape. Frankly, that’s you limiting yourself.”

“What? Hank, I—“

“Just listen! Light can take any form, Monica. The Vision is this entire island right now. I’m sure he can hear us as we speak. So I need you to do exactly as I say as quickly as you possibly can. Okay?”

Photon hesitated only for a second. “...okay.”

“You’re going to shift to sunlight. Very low intensity sunlight.” She did so easily. “And now – now you’re going to be sunlight. Relax your shape. You’re not Monica Rambeau. You’re Photon – you’re light and can restrict you but yourself.”

It was natural, the change of shape. A barely-noticeable ball of sunlight hovered before Pym, and even he was amazed – briefly. He took out a capsule, exposed the gas inside, and in seconds an inch-tall man called up to the light.

“Vision can sense me – but light is everywhere.”

The light that was Photon understood and engulfed Pym. He felt slightly warm, and when he opened his eyes, the world looked a little brighter.

“Now...” he said, a tiny man-shaped ray of sunlight climbing between the bars of a ventilation duct. “Now we see if this works. And we save our friends.”

Avengers Mansion

She hated the waiting. You’d think, after all these years – of battles with time lords, and being lost in space, and insane robots – that Janet van Dyne, the Wasp, would be used to it. Not just Hank (although she prayed for him after seeing his eyes when he’d come back for the others), but for all of them.

Maybe she was used to it. But this felt different. This felt bad, bad like the pit of her stomach was boiling rotten meat. The kind of bad only a woman can sense.

She half-wished she was there, just to know she could help, or to just know – period. But she was here. She was...

Left behind. She was a founding Avenger and she’d been left behind. It was the same business as when the universe nearly imploded itself – left behind.

The question had crossed her mind before, of course: what could an inch-tall daddy’s girl do? And she’d answered it again and again, “This,” and led the team to victory – or at least did a hell of a job.

Always do a hell of a job, her father had told her. Do what you enjoy and do a hell of a job.

Janet figured she was doing a hell of a job doing nothing right then. And there were plenty of things she enjoyed:

Internet shopping. Dinner parties. Reading the cheesy human interest stories in the middle of the paper. Driving up with a limo full of gifts for charity each Christmas. Curling up beside Hank in the crisp fall.

And that’s when she realized that the list didn’t include world-conquering villains, or friends turned sour – or sitting at home stuck worrying about what she’s not doing.

Janet had put on the costume so long ago, and it had changed so, so many times...

What the hell was the meaning of the Wasp?

“Madame Van Dyne?”

Jarvis stuck his head through the door, his body following in once he saw that it was acceptable.

“Hi, Jarvis,” said Janet. The old butler walked over – slowly, humbly – and stood over her in her chair. He looked at the back of her head for a moment, as it was all she offered.

And then he touched her shoulder, something neither remembered him ever doing in his time under her employment. Janet looked up at him. He waited for her.

“...is this what you feel, Jarvis?” she asked. “Every time we go off to fight?”

Jarvis tilted his head. “Helplessness? Worry so heavy it hurts?” He nodded. “Yes. Every time.

“That I call Stage One. Stage Two is next: when you realize that they are Captain America, Iron Man, and all the others. That they are the Avengers. This is what they do. It is why they exist. Stage Three is—“

“No Jarvis,” said Janet, standing up and looking somehow rejuvenated. “You know what?”

“What, Madame Van Dyne?”

“I think Stage Two is as far as I want to go.”

He studied her for sincerity, and when he found it, he nodded slowly and exited. Janet sat again and looked out the window. She would have news for the others when they got back.

If they got back.

The Theater

The man Wanda Maximoff had married was also the room she stood in, fought against. He had been a father to their temporary children. He was a friend and a lover.

No longer.

She knew this as a ten-foot spike whisked before her nose. It was as close to a hit as a miss could get.

The Vision was the room, and it attacked them from all sides and directions. She watched the Avengers dodging, barely having the time or energy to fight back. They had to move constantly. Stop and be hurt; be hurt and die. They were sure. He wasn’t pulling his punches. He had a soul before...

No longer.

No longer was there cold iron denying Wanda her gifts. With the touch of her lithe fingers and a focus of magic the inhibitor collar fell off with a chink.

The rest were men of physical prowess, geniuses, kings. And she was the Scarlet Witch – Gypsy, mutant. And most importantly, Avenger. There was a part only she could play: the sorceress.

It bubbled up from her soul to her eyes and fingertips. Pure magic bathed the lava-like floor of the auditorium and the Vision cried out painfully as he struck Simon again.

“You witch,” said a cold female voice. It was right behind Wanda and very familiar. She spun around and felt like she was looking into a mirror.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.” The Vision’s bride – Wanda’s own shabby robot copy. She looked into its black eyes and saw nothing. Wanda almost felt sorry for her.

The robot stepped forward, hands glowing, and Wanda held them in the air. Bless Cap for training her – even if she couldn’t hold long against a machine.

She wouldn’t have to. Wanda felt a hex coming on.

“He gave you everything,” the robot screamed, sounding like a screeching AM radio. “You broke him! You – you—!”

“Go ahead and say it. I’m a witch.” Wanda stared deeper into the robot as her own hands glowed magenta. There was a flare in her double’s eyes. “I’m a witch and you’re just a copy for him to use.”

Sinking to the ground, the robot realized her forearms were melded together. Wanda returned to the room.

A soldier must look after himself on the battlefield. A leader has his men to worry about. Captain America had both as he fought through walls of vibranium.

He saw Iron Man tugging free of a gray hand the size of his body. Hawkeye had lost his quiver and was being boxed around by any number of orbs from the wall.

They weren’t winning.

The Captain’s eyes found the shadow of a figure looming over the Vision’s back as the latter grappled with Wonder Man.

T’Challa was sneaking. The Black Panther would pounce. He did so, silently, and found himself wrapped around the Vision’s back.

“I thought of you as a better man than this, Vision,” he said, ripping into the liquid metal with miniature claws. “Even with all you’ve done, I still feel pain in doing this. But my people demand your punishment – and—“

Like a giant mallet, the Vision’s back deformed and punched the Panther’s chest hard enough to send him into the wall, where he was grabbed and sucked into vibranium quicksand.

The Vision reformed what had been shredded.

“I am no man,” he said, and struck Simon in the jaw with a crack.

They weren’t winning. He was.

Vance Astro’s mind flexed to lift the weight of fifteen islanders, cybernetic implants and all. They were tossed into their own and were at least down for the moment.

He watched Captain Marvel trade blows with the fake Thor easily. A voice of experience whispered advice in his mind. Firestar, his own Angel, had created a firewall that separated more converted drones from the battle. And the rebels continued fighting with reluctant vigor.

Vance rose to the air and with sheer thought struck down a perversion of Captain America. There were faux Avengers and drones down – humans as well. Some rose, and some didn’t.

But it was all done in silence. Justice didn’t speak a word, flying by his Angel, thinking the boulders into toppling and blocking off a sect of drones.

This wasn’t the battle they were worried about even if they really should have been. There was fire and death and civil war (if there was such a thing) around Justice, Captain Marvel, and Firestar, they at the center of it all. But there was no talking.

There was no talking.

Vision would hear it. Hank wasn’t even sure that Photon could talk in this state.

The air conditioning vents were like labyrinths – hall-size mazes to Hank Pym as he ran, light-footed as he could go. They would seem dark, but not now. Photon lit his way with her presence.

It didn’t help much. Each turn looked exactly the same and every way out was an empty room, or a place of drones, or just entire halls of machinery. None of them held his friends.

Hank wondered how much time was left, and how much he had spent so far looking for them. If he was too late, how was he to know?

There had to be hope. That’s why he was still running. And it sounded strange to him: Hank Pym, the optimist. Then he heard it – the banging noise. Over and over, shaking his tiny body with its tremors. The whole duct was quaking. There. He would follow it.

Hank had never run faster or more surely. Not since – no. Not ever. Each vent exit passed him in a flash and he ignored them all. Next, next, next...

Then he stopped. He could see little through the vent, but he was sure of this:

Those were his friends being beaten by the walls of the room. And that was his former friend and “grandson” at the center of it all – the conductor. The Vision.

Hank slipped through the vent and into the room.

The scene was practically a massacre. Most of the movement had stopped long ago, aside from the room itself. Each Avenger was trapped, gagged, bound by cold, flowing metal. T’Challa was gasping for each of his breaths through the wall.

The Vision collected himself.

“You don’t have to be alive when you are converted. None of you. And I don’t have the patience to go through this again. We’ll end it quickly, then,” he said, eyeing Simon (who kneeled before him, choking on the tendril down his throat). “Most of you, anyway.”

No matter how he fought, Captain America couldn’t raise his shield. He was helpless. Tony Stark balled fists inside his armor, his mouth uncovered.

“It won’t happen, Vision. I know this – I know it!” he said through his intercom. “I’ve seen what happens when machines lose it. You kill us and others are going to stop you. You’re just one mind. And – I never said this, Vision, but you’re created by us. By humans. We made you and we’ll end you.”

A leg of vibranium crept its way up Stark’s spine inside of his armor and got a tight grip on his neck.

“You’ll be the first example then, Tony. You’re the one dependant on machines as it is.”

Tony felt it tighten. He grit his teeth, flexed his neck, and shut his eyes. The blasts from his gloves did nothing. His armor’s strength was nothing.

But he had tried. And he was going down in the suit. Iron Man was prepared. He waited for it to come.

...and waited. They all did. And when nothing happened, the ones still in control of their necks looked to the Vision.

“What—“ The synthezoid stuttered a string of non-words and sound bytes.

The room dropped its victims and they watched their captor go rigid. He strained to speak.

“Get...out of me...grandfather.”

Oh God, Hank hoped this would work. He had to trust it would. Monica trusted him with her powers, her life here, still covering his whole body as he shrank even lower and swam the metal currents of the Vision’s body.

“Hard light, Monica!” he cried out to her, praying she could understand. “Hard light!”

He felt the change in his light-shield, and though the undertow was getting stronger, it no longer hit him like steel waves.

Time was of the essence. It always was in the Avengers. Now more than earlier and than ever.

They often followed the same design, androids. Snythezoids. Whatever Vision wanted to be called. This liquid metal was all expendable except for the one thing everyone needs – the brain.

Vision’s head was an upwards swim away. Hank never slowed down.

The voice echoed throughout as the body became even denser. “Get out of me, grandfather, or I will squash you.” Just keep going. “I’m going to squash you, grandfather. Ant-Man.”

Denser metal. Hank was smaller. It was getting hard to breath. But there was something dark in the distance...

The brain was at hand. Hank found himself inside it, moving faster than he could process by total nature – like a dream. He passed through its wall just barely and stood inside. The design was masterful, as detailed and complicated as a human’s.

And it was just as vital.

Hank popped a capsule out and exposed the gas inside of it. As it entered his lungs, he closed his eyes and trusted that Monica would protect him. They both would survive. They had to.

“...squash you...”

The sound was like muck splattered on the wall. It freckled the Avengers, more densely the closer it got to the Vision – or where he had stood. Nearby was Photon, leaning against the wall in her short-of-breath stupor. But even she was staring, along with all the others.

Where the Vision had stood was Hank Pym: six feet tall, trembling, and mostly covered in gray stains of liquid vibranium. His hands were darkest. When he looked down at them, he saw that he held the two (or four or so, now) lobes of the Vision’s brain in his shaky hands.

Then he looked up. The stares of all his friends met him. He had saved them. It was over. Hank had done it.

He had to.

Hank stood there, in the wavy metal room, holding his dead friend’s brain, vibranium staining his hands like blood. There was no talking.

I finished this issue just last night – the last third was all that needed to be done, and I did it in a fury of typing in an attempt to capture the disparity of the situation.

Also last night (or just yesterday), our friend Mike Exner III announced that he would be taking a leave of absence from fanfiction for an unspecified amount of time. I respect Mike’s decision, and can only hope that he comes back to us soon, refreshed and ready to go.

In the meantime, here’s an issue from me. Mike and I discussed the plot, and he wrote a scene, which I rewrote with his permission to make the issue flow under one author. I missed his presence, but it’s good to write alone sometimes, so hopefully I did alright. Let me know.

Next issue should also be a solo effort from me. From there, we’ll see what happens. If Mike comes back, then we could definitely get started again. If not, I may be able to continue doing solo issues for a little while. And if not that then I may have to leave.

Either way, I just realized that last night I killed the Vision and that, beforehand, the android was kicking the asses of the entire team.

God, what a mistress fanfiction can be...

-Will Short
Tuesday, August 6, 2002
1:37 PM