LINE IN THE SAND

Part II

By Clayton Tooley

It was mid-afternoon before Zach Moonhunter (or Stapleton as he had been disguised) began to feel something was very wrong. He had been enjoying a rather leisurely day of non-activity, his body almost having recovered from the incredibly painful mission to free Quill and Occult from the Vault transport yesterday…not to mention the incredibly hot night of no sleep he’d engaged in with Belinda ‘Mist Mistress’ Stewart, the only enjoyable thing about this damned undercover assignment.

And the only thing he was going to miss when it was all over.

He sure as shit wasn’t going to miss the damned heavy boots he trudged around in now, the ones that with a twitch of his finger controls would launch him into the space between seconds and allow him to do things only a few people on the planet Earth had ever been able. While the rush and thrill of those first few seconds, relatively speaking, were always memorable, the continued pace and eventual return to normalcy contained such excruciating pain that the almost super-human bliss from the experience was just not worth it, at least for the marginally sane person he believed himself to still be.

Unsure of what the day’s events would foretell, and only being able to wear his special boots and belt when in costume, he had donned his Resistants uniform, sans mask, and gone for a walk. It wasn’t unusual for those who were field members of the group to wear their uniforms most of the time; they were made of unstable molecules, which meant they didn’t tear, didn’t get dirty and actually regulated the heat in Death Valley better than anything else, even total nakedness. Non-field members of the group— mutants with limited mutations, children or those with no desire to fight—wore whatever clothing they had brought with them from their old lives or could be grabbed during missions.

What began to peck at the edges of his awareness was that none of the ‘core members’ of the group were to be seen. He could not find Meteorite, Crucible, Paralyzer, Occult, Quill or Mist Mistress anywhere, and the more time that passed the more certain he was that some kind of shit had hit the fan, and he would be insanely lucky if it wasn’t his proverbial ass that was about to get chopped up.

Anxiety bursting through him, he sought through the 20 or so other mutants in the group looking for Isaiah, the blind healer of the group who was his closest thing to a friend and the only one who knew he wasn’t what he pretended to be—a mutant. After being discovered during one of Isaiah’s ‘treatments’, he hadn’t given Isaiah the entire story, but he’d made it clear what his intentions were here and his strong belief that something had gone wrong inside of Meteorite that was dangerous not only for the targets of their attacks but for the Resistants themselves. Isaiah, who’s powers allowed him an entire set of senses and knowledge unavailable to most others, had seen this sickness developing as well and had begrudgingly agreed to keep Zach’s secret, though at great personal conflict.

He was still thinking about all of this when he flung the tent flap aside and stepped into the dark confines of Isaiah’s home and froze in his tracks. Tied to a chair and covered in bruises, Isaiah stared out at him without his eyes being covered by a cloth bandage, and Zach clearly saw for the first time that the middle-aged black man did not, in fact, have any eyeballs at all. Still, it was a look of total recognition and utter sadness that he gave to Zach as soon as he entered the tent and, through a mouth caked with his own blood, Isaiah said, “Run, boy…RUN!”

Even as he turned, instinct taking over for his sense of friendship, Zach knew it was too late. Even before he could trigger the switches in either of his gloves, he felt himself lifted from the ground by an unseen fist made of solid steel that jerked him through the tent and plowed him face-first into the sand of the desert and pulled him along a good fifty feet before he was wrenched to a stop. Hands grasped him, lifting him to his feet just in time for a pair of metallic hands to be placed onto his chest as an unknown wattage of electricity was pumped into him from the bioelectric stores of Paralyzer.

He was a mutant who lived up to his name, for all Zach Moonhunter could do was twitch and scream…

The S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft alighted to the desert floor as silently as a hawk and from within came a rather large party of colorful figures, led by S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Jason Bludd and the USAgent, who stalked down the ramp in his uniform with a coldness radiating off of him strong enough to dispel the intense heat of the desert afternoon. Following them were a sizable team of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, nine in all, grouped into three teams of three, each wearing the blue and white uniforms of their employer but carrying or lugging around various amounts of weapons and other high-tech equipment as suited their specialties.

In addition, and perhaps even more impressively, there came a group of five super-heroes, all as grim-faced as the USAgent. Tigra, the usually flippant and fun-loving were-woman walked in a slightly hunched gait, her green eyes squinted and feral. Beside her strode a strangely quiet Starfox, a sometimes Avenger from the stars who had been a companion of Tigra for some time now. Behind them strode two very large men of vastly different skin tones and costumes, but they were both equally stone-faced. Battlestar’s red, white and blue costume stood out like a torch against the endless yellow sand, whereas the brown and yellow costume of Demolition Man blended into the desert better, but the brilliantly red goatee stood out like a flare against his pale skin.

Last down the ramp was Julia Carpenter, the former Avenger known as Spider-Woman, who was busy settling her mask onto her face from where it had lain pooled around her neck, adjusting it to cover her ears but let her hair fall free around her shoulders. The costume was new for her, a variation on her original costume with more black all over and thinner white lines streaking out from the white spider icon on her chest and back. It was a new costume to go with her new codename, Arachne, an alias she had chosen as a more personalized vision of herself as a super-hero, and not cashing in on an established name. It had actually been her daughter’s suggestion, something she’d gotten from a story she’d heard at school, but Julia had liked it and it fit into her efforts to merge her two lives into one.

But none of that really mattered at this moment, she reflected as she peered out of the white lenses of her mask at the stoic face of her friend John ‘Jack’ Walker, a former teammate whom she hadn’t seen in several months. Before a few hours ago, she would not have been able to honestly state that she had or had not missed him since they all had parted ways when Force Works had ended. Since then, however, perhaps after seeing his unnatural shyness and softness when he spoke to her at Captain America’s headquarters, she had realized that she actually had missed him, at least a little.

The tumultuous events that had heralded the end of Force Works, including the strange romance she had been coerced into with a man named Moonraker, had prevented any deep bonds from being formed between them, especially after she’d found out how she’d been used by the alien Coati, who had created Moonraker as a way to combat Kang and an insane Mantis. She still wasn’t certain how all that had worked out, not every fact, but she knew that she’d been played and it had burned her for these long several months, hardening her heart and soul to the point where she’d withdrawn from all outside feelings that weren’t for her daughter, Rachel.

But…hearing about what had happened to his sister and seeing his reaction to the Resistants threat, even before the shattering images of the torture of Jack Flag and Free Spirit, some of her empathy had returned and she admitted that she didn’t like seeing Jack that way. He had always been so strong and sure of himself…such an incredibly huge butthead…that seeing this side of him, especially the way he actually did let people he called friends in, like the ribbing he took from Lemar and Dennis while he fumbled when speaking with her, opened up a new side of him to her. A side she felt she’d like to take a closer look at sometime, perhaps.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a flaming figure dressed in yellow and red, who dropped to the ground beside Agent Bludd, her dark hair falling around her shoulders as Firebird arrived.

“Ms. Juarez,” Bludd said, nodding to her. “Thank you for meeting us. I assume you know everyone.”

“Some personally,” Firebird said, nodding at Tigra, Agent and Arachne, “and some by reputation,” she finished, nodding at Starfox, Battlestar and D-Man. She smiled briefly at the three squads of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, most of whom grinned like idiot school boys in her presence, which Julia had to admit was mesmerizing. She’d heard rumors that Firebird believed that her powers were given to her by God for spiritual purposes, and Julia certainly had to admit it felt possible standing this close to her. There was another rumor that Bonita was immortal, which would be the capper in the spiritual powers theory.

Regardless, Firebird turned and pointed directly ahead of them and said, “Twenty meters that way is the edge of a barrier around what I can only assume is a hidden base or some sort. From the distortions in the desert heat, it extends upwards for at least 50 feet then begins a slope to a domed point 100 feet in the center of the circle, which is several hundred meters in diameter. I cannot perceive anything from within except for pockets of intense heat, which could be bonfires, large concentrations of technology, or something unknown to me.”

“Could be anything in a mutant terrorist group,” Battlestar said, shifting his shield around on his back, its triangular shape unusual for a shield user.

“How do we get through the shield?” USAgent asked, unconcerned with what was causing the heat. “Is the barrier solid? Can it hurt us?”

“I am not certain,” Firebird said. “I did not approach per Agent Bludd’s instructions.”

“No problem.” Turning, USAgent took two steps to his side and reached down and grasped the top of a large rock sticking out of the desert floor by a good four feet. He sank his red-gloved fingers into the top of the stone directly, gouging his own finger holds and jerked it completely out of the ground, hoisting the several thousand pound rock up onto his right arm, which he cocked back before hurling it forward with all of his considerable might. It hit the barrier, which it turned out was solid, like the hand of God.

It exploded violently into dust a split-second later.

Crumpled in a heap on the ground, Zach Moonhunter didn’t hear the explosion that suddenly blasted through the Resistants’ base camp, as all of his nerve endings were sizzling and screaming in blinding anguish. He dimly realized that Paralyzer’s attack had stopped and he was drooling on himself, but he couldn’t seem to remember why either of those things mattered.

The group standing over him, however, jumped in surprise and many of them cursed loudly. The only hold out was the man named Meteorite, who had not jumped at the noise but that did not mean he was not caught off guard. Having been focused on tracking down and capturing the traitor in their midst, he hadn’t turned his thoughts to the fact that they may have actually been compromised. He flipped a switch on his wrist communicator and said, “Broadband, what the hell was that?”

“Explosion on the shield to the south. Someone threw a massive rock at it.”

“Someone threw a rock big enough to cause that explosion?” Meteorite asked, stunned. “Who, the Hulk? Thor? And why wasn’t I notified there was someone outside?”

“No, someone wearing a Captain America-knock off uniform,” Broadband said. Through the link they could hear him tapping furiously at a keyboard. “They arrived a few moments ago, but I wasn’t sure they knew where we were and you told me not to bother you. Sending an image now.”

From Meteorite’s communicator came an image of a very large group of people standing in the desert, consisting of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and superheroes. From their own files they recognized many of them, and a couple they’d faced personally, such as Battlestar. It was the man centered in the display, however, that turned Meteorite’s vision red and made both Mist Mistress and Occult take a physical step backward. Even in this black costume that was very much not a Captain America costume, his posture and presence crackled across the image and Meteorite said, “It’s him. I knew it would fucking be HIM!”

“Who?” Crucible asked, looking at the equally confused Paralyzer and Quill. “That’s not Captain America.”

“He was in D.C. that time,” Occult said, getting an agreeing nod from Mist Mistress. “He may not be now, but he was then. How can you not see it…the evil in his eyes…”

“Bullshit,” Paralyzer said. “I wasn’t handed my ass by a fake Captain America!”

“Actually, turns out you were,” came Broadband’s voice again. “I just hacked the Commission on Superhuman Activities mainframe, among others. That’s John Walker, now known as USAgent, who was active as Captain America for several months while the original, whose file I can’t seem to access, was ‘retired’. Walker was the Captain America you rescued Quill from, partnered with Battlestar who you can clearly see standing next to him on this image. He was also the Captain America who captured all of you in D.C., along with Think Tank. Apparently his family had just been slain by the Watchdogs and he was…upset.”

“Motherfucker tried to kill us!” Crucible screeched, his own bravado fading.

“But he didn’t,” Meteorite said, snarling. “Now we return the favor. Paralyzer, secure this traitor in the command center with his friends and have Broadband keep him disoriented so he can’t use his power. Then get back up here; we’ll deal with him later.” Paralyzer picked up Moonhuter, sending a new stream of electricity pumping through him and dragging him away roughly.

“Mistress, you still with us, or him?” Meteorite said, dragging her attention back from the receding form of her recent lover. Her face was flushed and he could see tears streaming silently down her face, but she nodded and he took her at her word. Her shock and despair when they’d gotten the truth out of Isaiah, another loss to the cause, had been too real for him to believe she’d known anything about this. She’d been used just as hard as the rest of them, and he’d make certain she got her pound of flesh.

“Good,” he said. “You and Quill get the non-combatants to the shelters. Crucible and Occult, you round up the reserves and get them outfitted. Everyone meet back here in ten minutes. I’m going to send out a little welcome gift to our friends.” Everyone dispersed and Meteorite turned and headed for one very large tent on the far side of the camp. As walked he asked, “Broadband, you still online?”

“Yes, Meteorite.”

“How’s the shield holding up?”

“That explosion reduced it by 25%, but it’s rebounded quickly enough. A continual assault of that magnitude would bring it down. It was made to shield us from view and detection, more than anything else, you know.”

“I understand,” Meteorite said, having reached his destination. “Prepare the phase on the edge facing the heroes and wait for my signal. I’m throwing my own rock at them to buy us some time.”

“Well,” Starfox said, crossing his arms, “I think that answers that question.”

As the dust blew away from the impact point on the shield they could see the slightest of ripples spreading around the edges of the invisible barrier, but no other evidence of injury to the shield. It was disappointing initially, until a member of the S.H.I.E.L.D. unit suddenly called out, “Agent Bludd!”

“Yes, Quinn,” Bludd said, waving the man forward.

“I was scanning the shield when the impact occurred,” he man said, holding up a palm-sized scanner which showed power output ratios and other tech jargon, which he pointed to in several places. “It wasn’t visible, but the physical impact caused a significant dip in the shield’s energy output and structural integrity.”

“What is your analysis of how to proceed?” Bludd asked.

“It seems the shield was made to hide the Resistants rather than protect them,” Quinn said, talking quickly. “Physical impact seems to be its weakness.”

“Good, let’s punch our way in then,” D-Man said, cracking his knuckles.

“Oh, no!” Quinn said, shaking his head. “The composition of the shield is very destructive to anything it comes in contact with, which is why the rock exploded into dust instead of just cracking into gravel as it would if it hit a normal solid object. If a living organism touched it, they’d be disintegrated.”

“Ok, so we should just throw rocks then?” Battlestar asked. “That’ll take some time.”

“No, something better,” Quinn said, pointing at three of the men standing with the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents. “Rocket launchers. A triangulated blast of medium-yield warheads should enhance the near-supersonic impact blow provided by the launchers and collapse the shield, without causing much damage to whatever is beyond it.”

“Should be a hell of a wake-up call at the very least,” Bludd said, nodding. “Move out. Quinn, establish locations for each team. USAgent,” he said, turning to the man who’d been very quiet. “I think a little super-support to assist the teams would be appreciated. I don’t think the Resistants will be happy with this and could attack on multiple fronts.”

Jack looked at him as if he’d grown another head for a second then looked back at the group of Avengers, all of whom had turned to him without a word. It was then that he realized for the first time what apparently had been obvious to the others from the start…namely that they were following his lead. “Ah, I agree. D-Man, Battlestar, Starfox, would you care to each accompany a team?”

Nodding, the three moved off with the S.H.I.E.L.D. teams, leaving the primary team, consisting of USAgent, Bludd, Tigra, Arachne and Firebird, to prepare themselves for the shield’s collapse. “Arachne, when it goes down we draw the attention to ourselves,” Jack said, summoning up his shield and getting a solid grip on the straps. “Firebird, give us some air cover and reconnaissance; none of the Resistants we know about can fly, and I’ll keep Meteorite too busy to bother you. Bludd, you and Tigra focus on finding those kids and Moonhunter, and leave the meatheads to us.”

Everyone nodded but before they could say anything the shield in front of them suddenly blurred and from within came a huge figure flying through the air like a shot, slamming down toward the ground directly in the center of their group, causing them all to dive or fly out of the way, Arachne being the only one reacting swiftly enough to grab the slow-moving Agent Bludd and pull him out of the way as well.

The behemoth that stood towering over them was terribly disfigured and overly muscled, all of which was apparent even through his stretched Resistants uniform and mangled mask that had been modified shoddily to fit over his misshapen head. His eyes blazed red from behind the mask and his mouth was a circle ringed with dagger-like teeth that had to be four inches long each. He was easily seven feet tall even with the hunchback, and his hands were three times the size of a catcher’s mitt, with razor sharp nails tipping each finger. His arms and legs were so over-muscled that it was impossible to believe he could move at all, much less quickly.

Yet he did, lashing out at the closest thing to him, which just happened to be USAgent. He got his shield up just in time to take most of the violence out of the backhand but not the impact, which lifted the much smaller man into the air and propelled him into the side of the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft thirty feet away, leaving a sizable dent in the metal as the Agent dropped to his hands and knees, gasping.

“No one hurts Banjo’s family!” the monster roared, throwing his hands into the air and balling his fists to bring them slamming down, trying to pound Tigra and Arachne into the sand but unable to match their speed. “Aarrgh!” he screamed again, this time from pain as Bludd’s standard issue energy pistol lanced out at him, drilling Banjo in the neck just below his chin, staggering the monster back a couple of steps, but otherwise not seeming to bother him.

Banjo’s focus shifted to Bludd who was trying to rapidly change the setting on his weapon, but before Banjo could attack a solid column of fire blasted into the sand at his feet and terrified him into taking a huge leap backwards. Firebird swooped in from above, staying well out of his rang, and formed a fiery bird image around her body. “Back, you pitiful creature! Don’t make me hurt you!”

“No!” Banjo said, regaining his courage and reacting to what Firebird had said. “No one hurts Banjo again!” He settled back onto his haunches and then powered himself forward into a leap that would have had him impact with Firebird in less than a second and it was questionable if she would have been able to avoid his charge in time or not. It was fortunate, then, that she did not have to find out, as Banjo barely got a foot off the ground before the webbing that had formed around him pulled taunt and he slammed into the ground…hard.

Standing behind him, her feet anchored as solidly as they could be in the shifting sand, Arachne stood holding a massive bundle of her psi-webbing in each hand, which spread out from her to cover both arms and legs of Banjo, wrapping him up as tightly as possible and preventing any sudden movements. Her own incredible strength had been sufficient to catch him unawares and wrangle him down, and her mental concentration in forming and maintaining her webs had kept up with his struggles, but doing both at once was a terrible strain. “I can’t hold him!” she screamed, leaning back to gain more leverage.

“Enough!” said a stern voice, which was followed up with a CRACK! of such magnitude that all sound in the area stopped for more than a second and Banjo stopped his struggles. Arachne dropped her webbing and leapt forward, clearing the now unconscious body of Banjo and landing next to Tigra, who was crouching in appreciation of what she’d just gotten to see…namely USAgent hitting Banjo with a shield-covered fist hard enough with one punch to knock the Frankenstein monster out cold.

“Ow, sonofabitch!” Agent was saying, having banished his shield and was cradling his right hand in his left. “I think I just broke a knuckle through my shield! What’s this thing’s head made out of?”

“Agent, please,” Firebird said, settling down next to Banjo and putting a comforting hand on his head, which was now without his mask as it had spun off into the sand as a result of the punch he’d received. “This poor creature obviously didn’t understand what he was doing. He’s been manipulated by the Resistants.”

“Or he could just be a mean bastard with a desire to protect what’s his,” Bludd said, returning from the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft with a much larger rifle weapon. “Either way, he’s taken care of. How long will those webs last, Arachne?”

“Long enough,” she said, rubbing her temples. “I’m getting better at making them stronger.”

“Good enough,” he said, holding a hand up to his ear. “I hear you,” he said. “Fire.”

From the distance several familiar-sounding reports happened simultaneously and three distinct explosions broke through the stillness and the effect was immediate. The air before them shimmered and then cracked, a loud pop that hit them physically as well as audibly as the energy released by the collapse of the domed shield rushed over them mixed with a wave of loose sand. When the sand cleared, they saw for the first time the large assemblage of tents had been constructed around a central building and a huge bonfire pit. Several of the tents had been flatted by the collapse of the shield, but no bodies or other signs of people could be seen at first, so it didn’t appear any innocents had been harmed by their entrance.

From the central building, however, soon poured a large group of yellow-and-black clad figures who seemed to pause just long enough for the entire group to appear, then they split into four similarly sized groups and charged.

“About fucking time,” USAgent said, reforming his shield and taking off at a dead sprint toward the group heading his way. “Kick ass!”

The four other members of his team paused for a second, perhaps wishing for a slightly better plan than that, but Arachne and Firebird were gone a split second later, leaving Tigra and her partner in this mission as the last two standing, who shared a look that turned into a shrug from Tigra, who smiled and said, “Avengers Assemble, I guess,” as she bound toward the fray.

“Not according to the President,” Bludd deadpanned, slipping on a pair of combat goggles and racing after the rapidly moving super-heroes before him.