The Caro Institute

The flaming vegetation that made up the Man-Thing slowly stitched itself back together, reforming into the massive, inhuman, and silent creature who had led the Defenders to this place. Mr. Moore, one of Mr. Termineus’ right-hand demons at the Caro Institute, was no more. The Man-Thing had completely devoured him, without leaving a single trace.

Doctor Strange hovered over the Man-Thing, the light from the Eye of Agamotto shining on the creature who was once Ted Sallis. Strange’s eyes were closed, an etheral eye appearing on his forehead as his magic artifact tried to divulge what was happening. After a moment, his eyes opened.

“I believe I know why our friend is on fire. There’s something happening in Citrusville. The Nexus is being tampered with,” he said.

The Defenders looked back and forth, taken aback by their leader’s abrupt, matter-of-fact method of speaking. Sleepwalker was the one who finally offered a comment. “That’s…a bit much to digest, Doc. Think you could explain it more?”

“We theorized—incorrectly—that the Man-Thing was on fire because he was frightened,” said Doctor Strange. “But that is not the case—rather, something inside him is scared. There are a number of demons inhabiting his form, and they fear their return to Hell.”

“So that’s why we’ve got our own personal burning bush,” said the Scarlet Spider.

“You mentioned the Nexus,” said Hellstorm.

Doctor Strange nodded. “The Man-Thing senses something very bad is happening in Citrusville, where the Nexus is located.”

“Termineus must be there,” said Hellstorm. “That means I’m going with you.”

“Not without me,” said the Devil-Slayer. “You don’t know what he’s put me—put us—through.” He glanced over to Sorrow as he said those last words. “If you’re going after Termineus, I want in.”

Sorrow’s thin arms wrapped around Devil-Slayer from behind. He turned to find her drawing closer to him. She stared deep into his eyes and Eric Payne felt a calm come over him. Her powers of compassion soothed him, lifting a weight from the depths of his soul. Devil-Slayer blinked a few times.

“But…after everything…”

Sorrow said nothing, yet her gaze bore deeper into him. He finally just nodded. “Looks like we’ll be staying here.”

“Very well,” said Doctor Strange. He raised his hands, his fingers tracing invisible circles in the air and energy erupted around the three beings, transporting them from the Caro Institute.

“What about us?” asked Nighthawk.

The Devil-Slayer pulled his cloak over his torso for just a moment. When he released it, he held a large, jagged broadsword with a spiked cross-guard. The sword’s blade seemed to be formed from a ruby. He swung it in his hand, testing its weight and grip. “Termineus’ customers are still snaking around here and the machinery located in this place installed them in these bodies to begin with. So we have to take all that out.”

“Do we know how many we’re dealing with?” asked Nighthawk. He performed a self-check on his own weapons.

Starlight’s radioactive aura surrounded her and she slowly hovered in the air. “Does it matter?”

Valkyrie drew her Dragonfang sword. “Nay.”

The Scarlet Spider reloaded his webshooters with fresh cartridges of fluid. “So it’s just the six of us against an army of demons? Sounds like fun.”

“Just another day at the office, Red,” said Sleepwalker, his eyes glowing.

The Devil-Slayer took point, leading the group. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

FEAR & PAYNE

Part III

By Ed Ainsworth and Dino Pollard

Citrusville, Florida

Strange noted the smell of greazy ozone and stale magic in the air. It stung his nose with every intake of breath. He didn’t much like the aroma of the Miasma of the Nexus, but there was little in the way of other options in this instance. Hellstorm, the possessed Man-Thing, and he all needed to be there to prevent Termineus from furthering his scheme.

Immediately, the Man-Thing set off, its huge eyes gleaming in the light of its burning form. They weren’t far from the center of the swamp. Hellstorm made a quip about the stench, but Strange’s own senses were so focused on the mystical energies, he could barely hear anything beyond his own heartbeat. Very little scared Stephen Strange, a man trained to cut open human beings and was able to channel his mind, body and spirit into a tuning fork of magical energy. But the Nexus of All Realities being turned into a weapon?

That terrified him.

“Ah, pleasure to see you all again. Especially you, K’Admon. You and your house guests have changed, haven’t you?”

Termineus rose from the swamp, his face twisted into a mockery of concern. He dragged a literal shard of reality from the center of the swamp, which curved through the air like any sword. And in its wake images of blue trees, green frog people and mushroom conversations on the minds of Hellstorm and Strange.

“After impressions of possible worlds,” said Strange in response to Hellstorm’s silent question. “Dimensional possibilities reverberating through our own world.”

“Super,” grunted Hellstorm.

The Man-Thing simply raised a burning fist to grab an equally white-hot sliver of reality.

“No, NO!” shouted Strange as the two blades met with a burst of perception. He threw his hands up to try and protect both him and Hellstorm from the brunt of the force.

But it was futile. The wave of reality crashed over the shore of Strange. His memories remained, but he noticed the gelatinous form of the Man-Thing, now made from thousands of cnidarian polyps, undulating and pulsating in the non-existent wind. Termineus, parrying the Man-Thing’s blade, was transformed into a shining pillar of sentient glass-works, reflecting a hundred emotions through a spectrum of color Doctor Strange had never seen before.

With the next blow, Strange looked down at his wooden body, realizing he’d been transformed into an ancient version of Stonehenge, carved from the internal elements of a five-hundred-year-old Oak. Hellstorm bubbled out of reality, now consigned to the knowledge that he would forever be the feeling of regret inhabiting and slowly overwhelming a mother of twelve as he licked her bovine lips in embarrassed recognition of the time she cheated on her partner with the Decapod from Number 68.

Each strike brought Doctor Strange closer and closer to the edge of madness. While his memories stayed the same, his body and life changed with each thrust and parry. His old memories constantly jostled for position as new ones that had always existed push themselves to the fore.

“Hellstorm…” he barked, through teeth that grew through his face into horns. The Lord of Hell grunted in response, charging forwards through the distortion waves.

“I. Have. Had. Enough!” Hellstorm leaped through the apertures as the Black Halo manifested itself over his head. His body instantly righted itself, reverting back from the form of a crimson dinosaur, the pentagram burning on his chest. “Starchild, remnant of a bygone age, Lord of Sorrow, whatever you actually are. I care little for your revenge, I care little for what you think you’re here to do!”

Hellstorm pulled the trident of pure hellform from his chest, gripping it tightly in black-tinged knuckles. “Whatever it is you hope to achieve, I’ll tell you now—whatever the world, whatever the reality, if I am a clever fart or an evil hamster, there is and shall always be a Hell!”

He plunged the trident through Termineus’ chest, his screams of anger matching the Fallen Star’s cries of pain. Hellstorm dragged the pair of them through the break in reality, into a death-locked tumble towards the flames that burned below in the netherworld.

Strange stood in silence, dripping with sweat, physically and emotionally exhausted. He stared in brief bewilderment at his current form, almost shocked to see he had been restored to normalcy.

“I hope the others are faring better than we are,” he said, staring at the still-burning heap of the Man-Thing.

The Caro Institute

Past the room where the Defenders had fought off the horde of possessed victims, the team now found a group of six facing off against them. They were all that stood between the Defenders and the machines which powered the possessions. The seven reached their fingers to their heads, peeling the skin of their hosts off their bodies and revealing their true forms beneath. The wet sound of muscle and flesh tearing was one that disturbed even the likes of Valkyrie and Devil-Slayer, whom themselves had seen more than enough cruelty and death in their respective lives.

The demons stood revealed and one, with purple skin and horns spiraling from his head, stepped forward. “You truly think you can stop us, Defenders?”

“It’s already happening,” said Nighthawk. “Our people have gone after your master.”

“Master?” The demon’s tone was derisive. “Pazuzu has no master!”

Pazuzu raised his arms and powerful winds slammed against the Defenders. The Valkyrie braced herself, embedding her spear into the ground to hold firm as her teammates were whipped in the whirlwind. The force blew the roof from the factory, but the Valkyrie mustered her strength to break through. She moved, step by step, towards the demon. Pazuzu watched her with a mixture of curiosity and concern, attempting to increase the current.

The Valkyrie struggled, moving closer until she came within striking distance. She thrust with the broadsword, Dragonfang, and ran it through Pazuzu’s abdomen. The winds instantly died down and the Defenders fell back to earth. Sleepwalker, Nighthawk and Starlight were all able to use their individual flight abilities to lower themselves back to the ground. Sorrow’s thread-like arms wrapped around the Devil-Slayer, pulling him back to earth while the Scarlet Spider relied on his weblines.

Zannarth licked his lips as he saw Starlight come within range. The incubus pounced, and tackled her to the ground. He sniffed her as he pinned her down, his eyes glowing brightly as he stared into her eyes. “Your soul smells lovely, my dear. And I’m so hungry. Haven’t had a woman since my return from Hell.”

Starlight struggled, and in her mind there were flashes of the Presence’s face overtaking Zannarth’s visage. Her eyes crackled and radioactive energy exploded from them, blowing Zannarth’s head from his shoulders. She stood slowly, fixated on Zannarth’s now-headless body in horror. “What did you turn me into, Krylov?”

The Scarlet Spider flipped from the webline, landing gracefully in a crouch. He had barely touched ground before his spider sense began buzzing in his head. He jumped forward, rolling a split-second before Baphomet’s fireballs would have torched him. “Watch it with those things!”

Baphomet just laughed, brandishing his longsword. He charged towards the web-slinger, raising the blade. The Scarlet Spider fired two weblines at the sword, pulling hard and throwing off Baphomet’s swing. The demon shook off the blow, glancing around for his prey.

“Hey, goat-boy!”

Baphomet spun to the sound of the voice. The Scarlet Spider clung to the wall above him. “You’ve been a baaaaaad boy!”

“I will cleave your extremities from your body as your flesh sizzles in my flames!” shouted Baphomet.

“Yeah, like I haven’t heard that one before.” The Scarlet Spider unleashed several impact webbing balls, which encased the demon in the sticky substance. The Scarlet Spider jumped from the wall and landed in front of his captured opponent. “Score one for the spectacular Scarlet Spi—”

The webbing erupted with hellfire, melting it from Baphomet’s body. His eyes burned with anger.

“Times like this, I kinda miss fighting guys like Kaine and the Jackal…” muttered the Scarlet Spider

The Devil-Slayer’s shield protected him and Sorrow from the flames of Ba’al. Once the ceased, he reached into his Shadow-Cloak and drew a gatling gun. Pulling the shield away, the Devil-Slayer unloaded rounds of mystic energy into the demon without any respite.

Sorrow’s thin arms entangled Ba’al, holding him down. The Devil-Slayer placed the gun back in his cloak and replaced it with a ornate dagger. He raised the dagger and drove it into Ba’al’s chest. The demon screamed as his form burned away with hellfire.

Under Ningal’s power, pipes shot up from the ground, wrapping around Sleepwalker’s arms and legs. The alien struggled with them, surprised at how similar Ningal’s abilities seemed to his own. Rick Sheridan gazed at the pipes, his warp-beams forcing them to return to the ground.

“Normally, I wouldn’t do this, but I think with you, I can make an exception,” said Sleepwalker. He fixed his eyes on Ningal and unleashed his beams. Ningal’s entire body began to twist inside-out, contorting in impossible poses.

Nighthawk’s wings protected him from Asmodeus’ mystic blasts, but he was running low on options. He had to find a way to take down Asmodeus, but it didn’t seem like anything would work. And now he could hear something in his head…like white noise. He couldn’t quite make it out, but there was something there…urging him.

“Let yourself go, Kyle. Use the gifts that have been bestowed upon you.”

“Trying to get in my head, Asmodeus? Well it won’t work!” Nighthawk threw open his wings and hurled several explosive devices. They went off around Asmodeus, but he just laughed as if they provided no distraction.

“What would I care for manipulating a pathetic mortal like you?” asked Asmodeus. “You’re just like a fly buzzing alongside gods! You—”

Asmodeus’ words got caught in his throat and he swallowed hard. Some sort of fear had seized him, and it was certainly a shock to Nighthawk. But he wasn’t about to let this opening pass him by. Nighthawk propelled himself towards Asmodeus, impaling the demon on his claws. He raised Asmodeus into the air, as if the demon were weightless. It must be dusk, that could be the only way to explain the sudden increase in strength. Nighthawk retracted his fist and it broke some of the demon’s teeth. Several more blows and the demon’s eye began to swell shut. Nighthawk pounded Asmodeus onto the ground and tore into the creature’s flesh once more.

“KYLE!”

Nighthawk paused and saw Starlight flying towards him. He smiled at her, but was surprised to see the same horror in her face that he’d seen in Asmodeus’. “Tania? What’s wrong, why are you looking at me like that?”

“Kyle…look at your hands…”

He stood upright and looked down. His gloves had been shredded. And instead of fingers, he saw long, thin, pitch-black talons. Kyle noticed something else was different and he realized that before, when he propelled himself into Asmodeus…he didn’t activate his jetpack. And he saw the red, shielded wings lying broken across the room. When Kyle reached his hand back, he felt leather wings protruding from his shoulders.

“This…this is a trick…” he muttered, shaking his head. “Someone’s screwing with my head…this can’t be…”

“I-I don’t think so…” said Starlight. She carefully reached for him. “Kyle, you just—”

“GET AWAY!” Nighthawk shoved her back and his wings began flapping, carrying him out of the Caro Institute. He quickly vanished into the clouds.

Pazuzu recovered from Valkyrie’s initial assault. He pulled Dragonfang from his body, discarding it. The Valkyrie wasn’t one to be at a loss, even without her weapons. She jumped, grabbing hold of Pazuzu’s horns and slamming him to the ground. When she went to punch him, Pazuzu took hold of her arm, breaking it. He held her at arm’s length, snarling.

“I will enjoy feasting on your soul, Asgardian!” he hissed.

A tremor struck. Then another. And another. “What manner of devilry is this?”

Pazuzu’s question was answered by a pair of mammoth, crimson hands that burst through the wall. The fingers wrapped around Pazuzu’s head and pulled him through the wall. A massive, red-skinned behemoth pounded on the demon with relentless fury.

When he finished, he moved back in, towering over the Valkyrie. He offered an open hand and the Valkyrie accepted it, leaning on the beast to pull herself to a standing position. She looked at him. “Hulk?”

“Sorry I’m late,” said the red Hulk. “What’d I miss?”

“Quite a lot,” said Starlight, landing beside him. “Where have you been?”

“Long story short, got sidetracked,” said Hulk. “By the time I got back to the Sanctum, everyone was gone. Wong told me what he knew.”

“How did you find us?” asked the Valkyrie.

The Hulk gestured to Starlight. “Thank the brightlight over here. Could track her radiation signature. So what’s this?”

“We think that machine is the key to these demonic possessions,” said the Scarlet Spider. “Destroy it, we send ‘em packing.”

The Hulk grinned. “In other words, you need me to smash somethin’, huh?”

Citrusville

Doctor Strange hovered as the Eye of Agamotto was open and glowing. He could sense the Nexus righting itself after Daimon took Termineus down to Hell. And as for the Man-Thing, the flames slowly subsided, disintegrating around the creature. That could only mean the Defenders were successful in destroying the instruments at the Caro Institute.

Stephen lowered himself in front of the creature. The Man-Thing’s giant, ruby eyes fixated on the Sorcerer Supreme. He could say nothing, but in his gaze, the message was unmistakable. Stephen smiled at the large collection of moss and gently laid his hand on the Man-Thing’s arm.

“You’re welcome, my friend. And I’d like to add, you need not continue on this lonely existence. My Sanctum is open to you, should you desire a place with the Defenders,” said Doctor Strange.

The Man-Thing’s response was to back away and slowly sink into the swamp. Stephen frowned. “A simple ‘no thank you’ would have sufficed.”

Flames shot up beside Strange and when they subsided, Hellstorm stood there, trident in hand. “Termineus is being…dealt with.”

“Do I want to know what you mean by that?”

“Probably not. Is everything finished up here?” asked Hellstorm.

“I believe—” Strange paused. The creature that had once been Ted Sallis was only partway into the mog before he stopped and turned, eyes large with fear and focused on the Sorcerer Supreme. Doctor Strange felt something amiss as well, the Nexus was acting up once more. But what was the threat this time?

A quick portal returned Doctor Strange and Hellstorm to the Caro Institute in the blink of an eye. The Defenders were mopping up the aftermath and the Hulk had apparently turned up as well. Strange had no time to worry about that, but before he could inform his teammates of what was happening, a figure appeared in a burst of crimson energy. His armor was red with a blue faceplate and he wielded a glowing staff.

“Who might this be?” asked the Valkyrie.

“I am the Scarlet Centurion, and you have been chosen!” He took careful aim with his staff and fired four bursts of energy. They struck, almost all at once, Hellstorm, Devil-Slayer, the Scarlet Spider and Starlight. Those four Defenders vanished.

The Hulk towered behind the Centurion and raised a fist, but he was stopped by an invisible forcefield. The Scarlet Centurion pivoted and blasted the Hulk. He then turned his attention to Doctor Strange. “Stay out of matters which do not concern you, Sorcerer. You have other things to worry about.”

With that, the Centurion vanished in a wave of crimson energy.

“What was that about?” asked Sleepwalker. “Where’d he take them?”

“I honestly have no idea,” said Doctor Strange. “We must return to the Sanctum, I have to see if I can locate our teammates.”

The white chamber was massive, with seemingly no floor to speak of. Marble columns lined the round room, extending down into a white abyss. In the center of the chamber was a golden basin, and the basin was filled with reflective water. Angels dressed in armor hovered in the chamber, their wings holding them aloft.

One of the angels hovered towards the basin, staring into the liquid. In it, he could see the events that transpired both in Citrusville and at the Caro Institute. The angel called Zadkiel was less than pleased. “We’ve spent eons tolerating this infantile behavior, waiting patiently for the End of Days, for the time when we can finally bear down on the lake of fire.”

“And what of the Presence? Or the rest of the Host? They may not support such an action, Zadkiel.”

“The Presence has remained silent for far too long and those who are afraid to fight will be dealt with in due time,” said Zadkiel. “But we cannot wait any longer. The time has now come for us to declare war on Hell.”

The other angels cried in support, hefting their swords into the air.

NEXT: The Avengers vs. the Defenders!