Author's Note: Quick! Go read IM #5 and #6 for the first parts of this story, then meet us back here!

Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean

Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes allowed the young Coast Guard medic to help him up onto the deck of the U.S.C.G. Lifeline. He'd been through much in the last 12 hours. Narrowly escaping with his life when an undersea beast had taken apart his exploratory vessel, Rhodey had then been abducted by some fruitcake calling himself the Master of the World, who'd dropped him from nearly a mile up after extracting certain information about the sea monster. The heroine named Warbird had saved his bacon that time, but not without injuring him further.*

(* This all happened in issues #5 and #6-sidekick-bashin' Russ)

He could walk though, and that was all he needed to do right now.

The railing was crowded with rapt seamen, and Rhodey and his friend the medic had to push through the throng to get in a position to see. The medic snatched a pair of binoculars from a nearby crewman and, ignoring his comrade's angry response, handed them to Rhodey.

"See, Mr. Rhodes, it's just like I told you."

Rhodey put the binoculars to his eyes and found that it was, indeed, just as he'd been told. Several kilometers away, Iron Man-known to a select few, including Rhodey, as Tony Stark-was engaged in a fierce aerial battle with a lean, but powerfully built man wearing nothing but a green pair of swimming trunks. Jim Rhodes recognized the Sub-Mariner instantly.

"No," Rhodey muttered. "You idiots, you're fighting the wrong person..."

He aimed the binoculars up toward the clouds, searching for the airship from which the Master of the World had dropped him barely an hour ago. He didn't find the ship, as it was concealed in one of the dozens of clouds overhead, but he did spot the thin, green shape plunging straight down through the sky, heading directly for the battling Iron Man and Sub-Mariner.

He gave the binoculars back to the medic, who handed them off to their still-grousing owner. "Take me to the skipper. Now. I'm going to need your fastest boat."

"Mr. Rhodes, you're in no condition to-"

"Damn it, kid, don't play mother hen with me now! Just take me to see the skipper!"

The medic nodded, then began pushing back through the crowd the way they had come. Rhodey followed as quickly as he was able.

"You've made a grave error, Avenger!" the king of Atlantis proclaimed. "Imperius Rex!"

Iron Man might have had a chance of blocking the blow, but he didn't even try. Namor, the Sub-Mariner, hit him hard, and with a resounding klong, Iron Man soared in a line parallel to the surface of the Atlantic, careening for nearly a mile before regaining control of his flight.

Namor was on top of him instantly, the wings adorning either of his ankles impossibly keeping the Atlantean airborne. Iron Man fired a repulsor blast at his opponent's head, but the Sub-Mariner dodged and pulled back to deliver another telling blow.

When he swung, Iron Man seemed to come to life for the first time since he'd picked this fight. He grabbed the hand hurtling towards him and pulled down, dragging Namor toward the ocean surface while simultaneously rolling on top of him. The Avenging Son's arms were now pinned behind his back, and it was only the work of another moment to manipulate him into a full-nelson hold.

The fact was, Iron Man wasn't sure he could take Namor in a fair fight. The man's lean body could withstand ocean depths that would crush any manmade vehicle. He'd even stood toe-to-toe with the Incredible Hulk on more than one occasion. Iron Man had many more weapons in his arsenal, but in terms of raw power, Namor probably outclassed him.

So it was best to level the playing field a bit. And Tony Stark, the man inside the Iron Man armor, was just mad enough to do it dirty.

Activating the microwave projectors in his gauntlets, Iron Man baked the back of his opponent's head with radiation. Namor howled, not in agony from the radiation -- which he could handle -- but from the massive dehydration that took place almost instantly. Namor was amphibious, but when above the waves he needed to occasionally re-hydrate himself or he would weaken geometrically. The longer Iron Man held him like this, the less likely he'd be able to break free.

"Coward...," the Sub-Mariner swore. Tony didn't give him the satisfaction of replying. He told himself he was doing this for the 24 people who'd died when Rhodey's ship was sunk, but deep down, he suspected he was doing it for the sucker-punch Namor had laid on him minutes earlier.* Even then, the matter didn't trouble his conscience too badly.

(*Happened last issue-Right-in-the-nose Russ)

"It's over, Sub-Mariner. When you wake up, hopefully you'll be calm enough to explain what's going on in a civilized manner."

"I... will... not be... defeated by... Tony Stark's lapdog..."

"Well, guess what, Namor? That's just what's happening. And you asked for th-"

Something dropped onto Iron Man's back from behind. The impact knocked Namor from his grip, sending the Atlantean hybrid tumbling to the ocean water several meters below.

But Iron Man couldn't worry about that just then. Powerful green hands clutched at his mask, finding purchase in the eye and mouth holes. Iron Man grabbed at the hands desperately, cursing himself for being so involved in his battle with Namor that he'd ignored his proximity sensors; he had to deal with this new arrival before the Atlantean king recovered.

Finally getting a grip on his assailant, the golden Avenger channeled a few thousand volts of electricity into the appendages, then flipped the new arrival over his head when the hold on him momentarily weakened.

"What the-?" The woman dangling over the ocean in his grip was willowy thin, with yellow skin and a shock of green hair piled atop her head. Her enormous black eyes were narrowed in anger, and her webbed left hand-she was hanging in Iron Man's grip from her right-swiped at him in impotent fury.

"Marrina?" the Avenger asked, incredulous. He had never met the amphibious extra-terrestrial who'd used that name, but he knew her history well. She'd served with Alpha Flight for a while, then joined the Avengers briefly after marrying the Sub-Mariner, who was also an Avenger at that time.

And it was during her tenure among Earth's Mightiest Heroes that Marrina had died, slain by the Sub-Mariner's own hand after she'd metamorphosed into a deadly and uncontrollable sea leviathan. Iron Man knew death was sometimes a revolving door, particularly where metahumans were concerned-Lord knew he'd taken a few spins through that door himself-but Marrina had been stabbed in the brain with the Black Knight's Ebony Blade.* That was not a demise one should be able to walk away from.

(* In Marvel's Avengers vol. 1 #293-Bet-that-one-left-a-mark Russ)

"Marrina!"

Iron Man heard Namor's cry at the same moment the Avenging Son hit him in the side, refreshed from his plunge into the ocean. Iron Man lost his grip on Marrina and the impact threw him back into the water. The last thing he saw before the ocean closed over his head was Namor catching Marrina by the shoulders before she could follow Iron Man into the water.

Then he was beneath the waves, and he had barely begun to stabilize his descent before massively powerful green tentacles snapped out of the murky depths and lashed themselves around his armor. The squid that had destroyed Jim Rhodes' ship and had nearly taken Iron Man's life had found him again. Iron Man had stolen its child, the egg it had fought so hard to protect.

So the monster slowly began to crush him as it again dragged him into the abyss.

Warbird tested the manacles pinning her hands together over her head and found they were too strong to break. She'd already tried using the bio-energy blast she could channel through her fists to shatter the bonds, but the manacles somehow absorbed that energy, and powerful electromagnets kept the manacles bonded with the ceiling above her. Given time, she might have overloaded the absorption cell, but that would be draining and there were no guarantees it would work. In any case, she didn't think she was going to be allowed the luxury of that time.

The door to the holding cell hissed open and the Master of the World stood silhouetted in the light from the hallway.

"You present a quandary, Avenger," he began, stepping over the threshold and considering her. "My genealogy readings suggest that a half-human/half-Kreevian physiology such as your own should be impossible by natural means. However you affected this physical change, it wasn't the old-fashioned way. I would like to study your physiology further-including this intoxicant addiction my machines have found evidence of-and I believe I would enjoy extracting your story from you-"

"I've been tortured by the best, old man," Warbird snapped. "It didn't do them any good, and I doubt a creep in a bad costume and the most pretentious name in history can do any better."

The Master's hand flashed out and struck her across the jaw, rocking her head back and bringing stars to her eyes. The man could hit a lot harder than she'd anticipated.

"You will speak to me with respect fitting my station, girl. I was ancient when your grandparents' grandparents were a-borning. I walked with prehistoric man-I was prehistoric man-and was elevated to a state surpassing the most evolutionarily advanced modern man millennia before you monkeys came out of your caves."

Warbird smirked. "So if you've had all that time, why are you still second-string?"

The Master gritted his teeth... then his tense shoulders fell and he chuckled with sudden humor. "My operative -- Marrina, the one who subdued you when you attempted to trespass on this ship -- is even now gathering up her Plodex sister and her offspring. When I have all the awesome power and potentiality of 3 Plodex at my right hand... then you shall hear of me, woman. Or rather, your comrades shall when I ascend to the role destiny prepared for me all those years ago: Master of this pathetic world.

"As for you, you will already be dead. You see, I have no interest in torturing you. Your physiology is of far more interest to me than anything you might be able to say. I can extract more useful information by gutting you alive than by talking to you."

Warbird glared silently in response.

"Think about it," the Master said. Then, with a twirl of his cape, he exited the room, leaving Carol Danvers alone with her black thoughts.

"Marrina?" Namor cried, holding the woman who so resembled his lost wife at arm's length. "Is it truly you? How can this be? How are you alive?"

Marrina answered by hissing angrily and kicking into Namor's sternum with both legs. The air rushed from his lungs forcefully, and Marrina writhed from his grip. Instead of falling to the water though, she grabbed Namor around the waist with her legs and raked her clawed hands across his chest, digging 4 deep furrows in skin that could withstand the crushing pressures of the ocean floor. Namor cried out and grabbed for the woman.

"Marrina, please-," he began, once he had her in hand once again.

His former wife smashed her forehead into his own, stunning him momentarily. Kicking back with her legs, and using Namor's own grip on her arms for leverage, she began ripping at his torso with the claws on her feet.

"Marrina... my love-don't..."

A stuttering report of automatic rifle fire sounded across the water. Marrina jerked violently as lead peppered her back, then turned from the dazed Sub-Mariner and spotted the speeding 2-man boat approaching her position from the Coast Guard Cutter, Lifeline. A black-skinned man stood next to the driver of the approaching boat, a smoking automatic rifle in his hand.

Growling, Marrina released Namor and dropped down into the water.

"Holy-," the boat's pilot cried. "Where did she go? Where is she?"

"Quiet," Rhodey said, scanning the surface of the water intently. The Sub-Mariner was hovering where the yellow woman had left him. He looked dazed from her attack, and would probably be of no help. "Stop the boat," he ordered, and the pilot quickly throttled down until they were floating stationary in the water.

"There!" Rhodey brought the M-16 to his shoulder again, wincing at the pain in his side the sudden movement caused him, and aimed at the green shape torpedoing toward them just beneath the water's surface. As he pulled the trigger, he held no real hope of the bullets doing any good-she'd just shrugged off 10 direct hits-but he had to try.

The rounds splashed into the water in a line, following the lithe green shape. But she was moving too fast; faster than Rhodey could swivel the gun to follow her.

"Oh," the pilot began "shi-"

The front of the speedboat exploded as the yellow-skinned woman burst from the water beneath it. As the pilot cried out in fear, Rhodey grabbed him by the life jacket and yanked him back into the rear of the small craft. Instantly, the boat tilted forward as water flooded its insides.

Marrina came down inside the boat, landing gracefully on the pilot's seat. Leaping down off of it, she raked one webbed hand across the side of the craft, and the reinforced wood and aluminum shattered at the casual blow.

"Get your gun!" Rhodey ordered the pilot, and brought his own rifle back up to his shoulder.

"Hold!" he heard, and glanced up just as Namor the Sub-Mariner slammed into the woman from above. The two of them smashed into and through the side of the boat, plunging into the water below together. Rhodey stared in astonishment at the massive hole in the side of craft, and then it tilted crazily again. The pilot was grabbing at Rhodey's life jacket.

"Come on, I've got the inflatable ready! We've got to get out of here!"

Nodding, Rhodey slung the rifle over his shoulder and clambered over the back of the wildly tilting boat. True to his word, the Coast Guardsman had an inflatable raft with a small outboard waiting for them.

"Rhodey!"

Jim Rhodes turned and found a dripping wet Iron Man hovering next to the raft. "Iron Man! Where the hell you been?"

"Fighting your sea monster," he answered. "It's susceptible to radiation, so I managed to break free... again. Where are Namor and Marrina?"

"Somewhere under the water, but they're not your concern now, Shellhead. There's bigger fish to fry."

Quickly, Rhodey explained what the Master of the World had done to him, and his assumption that the Master was behind this yellow woman and maybe even the sea monster itself. At the least, he was pursuing the monster for his own ends.

"And you say Warbird went after this guy already?" the Iron Avenger asked.

"Yeah, a while ago. Haven't heard from her since."

"Can you two get back to the Lifeline all right?"

"We've got an outboard," the Coast Guardsman replied. "As long as we ain't attacked by anymore yellow aliens, we'll be fine."

With a curt nod to acknowledge the man, Iron Man turned his face skyward and rocketed into the clouds.

"I think I'm beginning to understand now," the Sub-Mariner said, ducking one of Marrina's blows. The water didn't seem to slow her down at all.

"You're not Marrina," he continued, dancing just out of reach of all of her blows. "Now that I look at you closer, that is plain to see. You're one of her offspring, aren't you? One of the Plodex children I saw leave her 'nest' after I was forced to kill her."*

(*Again, check out Marvel's Avengers vol. 1 #293-Retro-Replay Russ)

In her fury, Marrina got too close. Namor grabbed her fist and spun her around-as Iron Man had done to him earlier-then pinned her feet between his own. "You Plodex acclimate yourselves to a world by becoming an approximate version of the first race you encounter. Your sister bonded with a squid, and you bonded with a human, as your mother before you did. And yet you are much too old to be her child. Someone has advanced you artificially into adulthood. Who is it, my child? Tell me, and I'll wreak terrible vengeance on whoever has used you."

Finding the Master's ship was no trouble at all for Iron Man's advanced detection systems. Tony Stark had spent a lot of time during the last 10 years developing stealth technology-both for sale to the US government and for the Iron Man armor. As a result, he knew tricks to negate that technology that no one else would even consider for at least 2 decades. He had a vague recollection of the Master of the World from the Avengers' files. It had all been second-hand accounts from Alpha Flight-most of it entered by Marrina, in fact-and he knew the Master had access to alien technology Tony couldn't hope to compensate for, but the cocky bastard was apparently relying heavily on the cloud cover. Tony got around his stealth systems like they weren't there.

Then he blasted a hole in the alien metal of the ship and let himself in.

Namor sensed the squid's approach before it appeared before him and the Plodex girl. The beast made no sudden moves, just approached the two struggling forms and watched them, its tentacles flaring and darting about its long, thin head and body.

The squid's arrival only made the girl in Namor's grip struggle more fiercely. He considered taking her up into the open air, where she would be out of both of her elements, but if her abilities were like her mother's, Namor himself would dehydrate and weaken more quickly than she would. He was weighing his alternatives-including the distasteful option of knocking her unconscious and taking her back to Atlantis where she could be properly detained-when the woman-creature cried out:

"MASTER!"

Iron Man knew the time for subtlety was long past. The Master of the World certainly knew he was here after he'd punched a hole in the side of his ship. So when the troop of black-and-silver robot guards charged into the hallway he was following, he didn't waste time trying to evade them. Instead, he ripped through them with his repulsors. In under a minute, he was alone in the hall again, treading over the shredded remains of his enemies.

He activated a cooperative scanning program-one of the special "Iron Man-only" programs and systems he'd never patented or revealed to the public. The command series initiated a variety of scanning techniques throughout his armor, both active and passive, and collated the diverse information sets-things like infrared, audio pickup, low-level radiation emission-to determine the locations of nearby lifeforms. The program took nearly two minutes to run and spit out its answer, so Iron Man kept moving as it worked, heading for the front of the ship... the most logical position for some kind of control area. He met no more resistance while the program ran, but neither did he find the bridge before the onboard processor gave him his answer.

There were only 2 lifeforms aboard this ship besides himself; one showing a mixture of Kree and human traits, the other wholly human, though enhanced in some undefined way. The half-Kree reading had to be Warbird, and Iron Man breathed a sigh of relief that Carol Danvers was still alive. He was closer to the other lifeform-that one had to be the Master of the World-but his first priority had to be freeing his ally.

Ripping a control touchpad off of a nearby wall-this ship's high-tech version of a lightswitch, Tony guessed-he grabbed up a bundle of power conduits and wires and gathered them carefully into both fists, being careful not to actually rip any free of the wall. Then he very deliberately fed a pulse bolt through them.

Pulse bolts sapped a lot of power from the armor, which was why he tended to rely on repulsors instead; but pulse bolts had 2 unique properties that were priceless in a situation like this: rather than dispersing, they gained strength as they traveled over great distances. And they were VERY conductive, allowing him to push them through this ship's power lines.

Lighting fixtures began exploding up and down the hall in either direction. He heard larger explosions farther off as the bolt worked its way through the ship's main power circuit. By the time the pulse bolt reached the central generator, it had built up enough strength to annihilate it. The ship rocked with that explosion, and Iron Man smiled with grim satisfaction.

Considering how easy it had been to breach the hull, Iron Man doubted the Master had any material strong and dense enough to restrain Carol, so it stood to reason that he was using some form of energy or electronic device to keep her contained. By destroying the power in this ship, Iron Man had simultaneously freed her and taken the Master out of the game. Without main power, his ship would be able to do little more than stay aloft...

At least he thought it would be able to stay aloft. Imagine his surprise then, when the ship shuddered violently beneath his feet, then a moment of weightlessness as it began to plummet from the sky.

A bolt of lightning exploded from the contact point between Warbird's manacles and the ceiling of her cell. The light overhead burst at precisely the same moment, and Carol toppled forward, suddenly not pinned to the ceiling anymore.

She didn't waste any time trying to figure out where this opportunity had come from. She didn't have enough leverage to break out of the shackles by strength alone, so she simply tucked her head into her shoulder to shield it from shrapnel and fired energy blasts from both fists. The shackle exploded, unable as it was to absorb her power like it had before. Even in the dark, it took her only a few moments more to do the same to the restraints on her feet.

Carol Danvers flung herself at the door to her cell, knocking it off its hinges and across the outside hall with one punch. Lights were out all up and down the corridor.

And then the ship started to fall.

"MASTER!" the young Marrina screamed again. She arched her back violently, bending backwards nearly double, then her hands seemed to dislocate from the wrists and she slithered free of Namor's grip. She was gone in the blink of an eye, arrowing toward the surface.

Namor gave chase, followed closely by the giant squid.

Iron Man rocketed through the ship's corridors, flashing around corners at speeds that were more than a little reckless. His scanners - now that they were locked on the 2 lifeforms aboard this ship - were keeping constant track of their movements. Warbird, he saw, was free and moving away from where she'd been imprisoned seconds earlier. The Master of the World, though, was stationary in his command center. That left Tony with seconds to find the man and get him out of the ship before they hit the ocean with all the grace of a runaway comet.

The door to the room the Master was sequestered in was marked with strange alien language that Tony couldn't even begin to decipher... nor did he particularly care what it said. Landing in front of it, he blasted the portal off of its sliding track.

And was immediately sucked out into the sky over the Atlantic Ocean.

"Did you really think your human scanning technology - no matter how advanced - could outstrip the knowledge of a race that was traveling between stars before man was using fire? Begone, armored barbarian!"

"Arrogant... bastard," Tony swore. He fought to right himself as he was sucked into the alien ship's slipstream. His armor automatically tracked the frequency the Master had transmitted to him on and fired his reply back along the demodulation of that frequency. "I'm trying to save you, damn it!"

"I have returned from setbacks more severe than this! I have all the time in existence!

"I am Master of this world, Man of Iron, and I will claim it one day over your long-dead bones!"

Warbird found a wall that looked like it might lead to the outside. She was weak from the pounding she'd taken earlier and her brief captivity, but she hoped she had enough left to poke another hole in this sucker, or she was going down with the ship. She fired on the wall, weakening it as she approached, then put her head down and charged.

The impact was stunning, but the hull shattered and she managed to make it through to the outside just as the ship plummeted below 2000 feet. Weak and dazed from the effort of breaking out, she fought to maintain altitude as the Master's ship fell toward the ocean.

"Easy, Warbird," a familiar voice said, accompanied by the comforting hum of bootjets. An iron-clad hand grabbed her wrist and pulled it around strong shoulders while the other arm wrapped around her waist.

"Took ya long enough," Warbird laughed.

"Sorry, my other date was a little clingy. Couldn't shake her."

"Really? Who is this other woman?"

Iron Man pointed toward the water below the Master's ship.

"There she is now."

"MASTER!" the young Plodex girl cried in terror, as she watched her beloved's ship plummet toward her.

"Marrina!" Namor cried, surfacing several yards away. He knew this woman wasn't his dead wife, but she looked so much like his lost love that he literally couldn't bear to call her anything else. "Move! You'll be crushed!"

He lunged at her, but a thick green tentacle snapped out of the water below him, wrapping itself around his middle and hurling him away with all the considerable strength it could bring to bear. As the world flipped over, Namor saw the green squid who had started all of this partially emerge from the water of the Atlantic and reach it's enormously long tentacles into the sky to greet the plummeting ship.

The explosion when the Plodex ship struck the water was magnificent, laying waste to everything around it for miles.

EPILOGUE

"And that's all there is to tell," Iron Man said later, on the deck of the Lifeline. A young officer stood before him with a clipboard, taking careful notes. "The ship was vaporized, along with the sea monster and the alien who attacked the Sub-Mariner and I."

"And King Namor?" the officer asked. "What happened to him?"

Iron Man shrugged. "I honestly have no idea. Hopefully he wasn't in the blast radius when the Master of the World's ship detonated, but I haven't seen him since our fight was interrupted."

The officer nodded and tapped his pen on the clipboard. "That should be everything I need, sir. If I have to contact you for further questioning...?"

"Just call Stark Solutions," Iron Man finished for him. "I'll get the message."

The officer shook his hand and departed. Iron Man turned and strode across the deck to where a lovestruck medic-the same one who had treated Rhodey-was tending to Warbird.

"Are we done here?" she asked as Iron Man approached.

"I think so."

She stood, upsetting the medic, who had to chase her with the bandage he'd been preparing to apply to her cheekbone. She stood still long enough for him to stick it on, then thanked him and crossed to where Iron Man stood.

"So do we have to fly all the way home or do you think Tony Stark could arrange for some transport?"

"I already put in a call to Pepper. An aircraft is on the way to pick us up, but I've got one last bit of business to attend to first."

"What would that be?"

"His business is with me, woman."

Warbird turned. Behind her, Namor the Sub-Mariner was hefting himself over the cutter's railing. Warbird stepped aside as the King of Atlantis crossed the deck of the ship to stand in front of Iron Man.

"Namor," Iron Man said in cold greeting.

"What happened to the egg?"

"It's right here, of course." Iron Man put a hand to his side and clicked a hidden stud on one of the disc-like pods hanging from each hip. The pod opened and he drew a green, gelatinous egg, roughly the size of a softball, from the compartment.

Namor considered the egg, his black eyes narrowing in apprehension, then he returned his gaze to Iron Man. "And what will you do with it?"

"You tell me," his opponent replied. "I could give it to you for safekeeping and risk another one of the things we battled today rearing its head again in a few years..."

"Or you could vaporize it in your palm right now," Namor finished. "But can you do that, knowing that there's a life within?"

"You'd be surprised what I can do, Namor. What do you suggest?"

Namor put out a hand, palm up. "Give it to me. It is all that is left of my wife, and if I am with it when it hatches, I can ensure it will never be as destructive as it's parent was."

"Just as you 'ensured' Marrina wouldn't be destructive?"

Namor stiffened, and for a moment Tony Stark thought he'd gone too far. Then the Avenging Son nodded.

"I couldn't anticipate what happened to Marrina. But I can keep it from happening again with this little one, if only I am present when it hatches. Give him to me."

Iron Man stared at the Sub-Mariner, the two of them locked in a battle of wills with Namor's open hand hovering expectantly between them.

"Iron Man?" Warbird said uncertainly.

Sighing, Iron Man turned his gauntlet palm-downward and dropped the egg into Namor's naked hand.

"I pray that when next we meet, it is as allies," the King of Atlantis said, then he launched himself into the air, swooped backwards in an arc over the deck of the ship, and disappeared back over the railing.

"Wow," Warbird whispered, watching Namor's lithe body vanish beneath the deck. "I talked to him briefly during that crazy Morgan Le Fay business* a few months back, but..."

(* See Marvel's Avengers vol. 3 #1-3 - Russ)

Catching herself, Carol self-consciously stopped talking about Namor and quickly changed the subject. "So what do we do now, Iron Man? Now that your Dirty Harry impression is done, I mean."

The armored Avenger turned to regard her through his eyeslits, and when he spoke, even through the armor's voice synthesizer, Warbird could tell he was grinning from ear to ear.

"Why, I thought that would be obvious... we celebrate, of course. Isn't that what heroes are supposed to do when the good guys win?"

Namor had crossed barely a league when the egg began to stir in his hand. A sperm whale passing nearby sensed the Sub-Mariner's presence and offered in its body language to provide transportation back to Atlantis.

Go, gentle creature, Namor commanded. The Sub-Mariner has no need of your generous services today. If, however, you come to Atlantis in your travels, warn them that I shall be home shortly, and that I will not be alone.

The whale continued on. Veering off, Namor alighted atop an underwater peak and sat down upon its edge, the egg cupped carefully in both hands.

The gelatinous softball-shape tore down the middle. Namor helped it along, peeling the slimy chunks of egg away from the life within. When it was over, he held a yellow-skinned, humanoid baby in his arms, barely big enough to fill his powerful hands. The alien fussed for a few moments, then settled down comfortably into the King's palms. Within moments, it was asleep.

Namor smiled, an expression awkward and unfamiliar to the muscles in his face. The replication was complete. The child had bonded to and mimicked the form of the first being it came in contact with... Namor himself.

Marrina was dead, and her children were also gone, but the grandson of the King of Atlantis was alive and well. Maaken would be his name. It was an old Atlantean name, borne by a proud tradition of heroes. Namor would see that the child in his arms would grow to live up to it.

Tucking the newborn carefully against his body, Namor started for home.