Marvel's Secret Invasion Prose Novel, page 21
He changed tack immediately. “Sorry. It’s just a present.” That hadn’t been Henry. That had been the Skrull who’d worn his face, who realized in that second he’d chosen the wrong note to make this work. “Okay, let me frame that differently: it’s something I’ve been working on.”
“Oh no,” she whispered now, “oh no!”
Opening the case, he revealed a hypodermic needle and an ampoule containing a green fluid. “It’s a new growth formula,” he said, “with it, if you want to be the Wasp, you can shrink down, but if the situation calls for a Giant-Woman, or whatever you want to call yourself, you’ll be able to switch from one to the other immediately, without having to rest and prepare in between. It’s fully tested. I mean, I could just about get this into pharmacies. I’ve used it for a whole series of trials with no problems. I figured this… it’s me giving you even more freedom. Or that might be the wrong thing to say too. Anyway, whatever, it’s useful, it’s yours now.” And he slid the case across the desk to her.
That evening, she flew herself off to some empty farmland to test it. She injected herself with the serum. She shrunk, then grew, back and forth, and laughed at what indeed felt like a new dimension of freedom, resolving to send Henry a thank you note that would somehow… well, maybe it could one day be a friendship, eventually, she had thought that evening. Really using this new power set would be something for the future, she thought that evening, because, of course, it would require new training.
She’d been such an idiot.
Henry knew she’d been tired of being small. That to be big at any given moment… it had been his dream, but it had also been hers, and the Skrull with his mind had trapped her with it.
She was swaying on her feet, lost in the pain, hiding in her memories.
And even as Cassie rushed toward her, she was growing again, bigger and bigger, faster and faster, and she could see that her hands, her arm, her whole skin was starting to blaze with some sort of all-consuming alien energy. Something was bursting from her every pore, some sort of chemical that was rushing out of her, and oh god, the agony!
Janet threw back her head screaming, and that scream was so big it resounded in every corner of the park.
FORTY-TWO
BALKAMAR
BALKAMAR STOOD in front of the monitor screens in Avengers Tower, where Jessica Jones had left him, awkwardly holding her human baby.
Well, this was quite the pickle.
His escape from the Helicarrier had been a close-run thing. He had grabbed a colleague who he knew to be able to teleport, relying on her to have her wits together enough to get them out of there, and, sure enough, she had. It took a few hops to get them back to New York, but as soon as they arrived in the city, she declared her duty lay in battle and disappeared once again, heading for Central Park. His own duty, following orders given in event of this contingency, lay elsewhere, and so he returned to Avengers Tower, placing himself in confinement, a situation that would be discovered by any of the Earth warriors who possessed sufficient technical or investigative skills. They would now know, after all, that there was a Skrull duplicate of Jarvis. It was up to him to convince them it was not he. Then he could spy upon the plans of any who reconvened here and offer a spot of misdirection here and there.
He had not expected Jessica Jones to be the one that found him, and, he had to confess to himself now, the situation in Central Park had obviously progressed to a point where his duty here was somewhat meaningless. He wished desperately that he could go over there to lend a hand, and be able to say, in his declining years, that he had been present at the Battle of Central Park. And yet “they also served,” old man, “they also served” and all that! The humans might still retreat here, and orders were orders. The baby did complicate things somewhat. Balkamar had no quarrel with the infants of Earth. Indeed, both his religious belief in prophecy, that the humans were to be a joyful underclass when this world was a Skrull one, and the memories he had taken from the original Jarvis, made him rather fond of them. To some extent, Ms. Jones had therefore been correct in the leap of faith that she had made entrusting the care of Danielle to him.
To some extent.
“I say,” he said to the baby, patting its back, “do quieten a little, my dear, I am trying to think.” Nicely, the baby did. “From what I see of the battle in Central Park, the words of the Prophets are coming true, albeit they are taking their jolly old time about it, and rather going the pretty way. What is happening with the Wasp there, Janet Van Dyne…”
He tapped one of the screens.
“She’s releasing a nerve toxin especially created to target the power sets of super-powered humans—and certain other species, too. She’s become rather a living factory of it, I’m afraid. And she is getting larger and more capable of production every moment, which is in some ways a great pity. I had become rather fond of her myself. The human warriors may all have been ignoring her of late, but they do all love her and look to her as a leader, and they will be absolutely unwilling to disintegrate her, which is what it would take to end this problem for them. So, I believe we may shortly see the end of the Central Park, and with it the end of the greater part of human resistance, though if Queen Veranke has given her life for the cause… well, it is how she’d have wanted to go. No, all in all, I do not now feel I am obliged to rush over there and join in the fray, as much as I would enjoy doing so. Let us see what is happening elsewhere. Perhaps I may be moved to lend a hand in other parts. In which case, young lady, you will be off around the world.” He tapped a button and the screens began to cycle through news feeds from the rest of the Earth. “From the media in the United States, of course, you’d hardly know we’d invaded the rest of the planet too.” He tutted. “That’s the Yanks for you. Ah, here we are…”
He had found a broadcast from their forces stationed in Wakanda. It was Commander K’vvvr, who Balkamar knew well enough to pass the time of day with, making an announcement. He looked tired as always, but he was making a good show of displaying to the Wakandans that the Skrulls were in charge of the country now, standing on the bridge of his flagship, his hands grasped behind his back. “Citizens of Wakanda,” he was saying, “your king, T’Challa, and queen, Ororo, have surrendered to us, and as we speak are being interrogated. Further resistance on your part will only make their suffering, and yours, worse. We respect the traditions of Wakanda. You have put up a noble fight. You cut us off from our technology and we disarmed yours in return. So, this battle was with the most traditional of weapons, something that perhaps you did not expect us to embrace as fully as you yourselves did. But we did in doing so, I hope we displayed to you our own nobility and martial prowess. We acknowledge that our invasion here has succeeded only at great cost. But make no mistake, succeed it has.” He paused, as if distracted by something, and glanced over his shoulder, a puzzled look on his face.
Suddenly, with a blaze of static, the broadcast was interrupted, and the unmasked face of King T’Challa, their so-called Black Panther, appeared onscreen. Queen Ororo, the mutant weather-controller codenamed Storm, stood beside him, proud, determined looks upon their faces. Ororo nodded to the camera and moved aside as if needing to deal with something.
Balkamar cleared his throat nervously. What was going on here? Though the background was still that of the interior of a Skrull ship, T’Challa certainly did not look like someone undergoing interrogation.
“People of Wakanda,” said the King, “it was not I who surrendered to the Skrulls. It was not my Queen. It was two Skrulls our people had captured, their forms fixed in our likeness, their voiceboxes controlled to say a few basic phrases of defiance. It is they who have been ‘interrogated’—or rather, tortured—by the Skrull invaders. This stratagem has allowed the Queen and I the time to make a move or two of our own.” He swung the camera to show a furious Commander K’vvvr, Ororo now beside him with a blade at his throat. They were alone on the bridge. Or rather they were now: Balkamar spotted a couple of Skrull officers slumped over controls. Nearby came a distant thumping. It seemed the bridge had been secured and those outside were trying desperately to get in. T’Challa stepped over to the Commander.
“The Panther God sees all, K’vvvr. You talk as if you are noble. And yet you have ordered butchery. I could give many examples of the innocents, the unarmed, who have died at the hands of your troops and by your own hand. You are in my land and subject to my laws—”
“God’s will shall prevail! This world will belong to—”
“The sentence is death.” And T’Challa sent his own sword quickly and neatly through K’vvvr’s throat.
Balkamar placed a hand over Danielle’s eyes as soon as he realized the way this was going. “Oh dear,” he muttered to himself. “Oh, dear me.”
“Wakandans!” bellowed T’Challa to the camera. “This is your signal! Rise up! Wakanda forever! Leave no Skrull alive!”
Balkamar quickly changed the channel. “Let us see,” he said, “if we can find something a little more heartening, eh? Perhaps the BBC?”
He was indeed now looking at a BBC news channel broadcasting from London, the view from a helicopter flying over the moonlit Thames, just down from the Houses of Parliament by Balkamar’s reckoning. The camera was looking down on Westminster Bridge, where some sort of battle was going on.
“It looks like one of their big guns, one of what we’ve been told are called Super-Skrulls, a magically empowered one,” said the reporter, speaking loudly over the noise of the rotor blades. “It’s got aspects of… I’m seeing something of the American magical hero Doctor Stephen Strange about that costume, and the creature is wearing some sort of chain. You can see he’s got a flaming, horned head, making one assume there’s some sort of demonic inspiration or dimension there. But what is incredible is who it’s facing, who’s been standing up to repeated assaults from this thing and just keeps fighting back, he’s just not giving way. The costume may be different, and we’ve been hearing reports about how that came about, but I think we can feel confident that that is Captain Britain, and he’s… oh!”
The figure on the bridge dressed in the colors of the flag staggered backward as the Super-Skrull brought down a flaming sword, but he’d countered with something. In his hand, Balkamar saw, he also carried a sword. “He’s holding on there. He’s carrying, from the markings, I think that is the legendary sword Excalibur. Now, if that is the case, the implications… well, I think we all knew this invasion was a matter of the utmost urgency, but this—Okay, I’m told we’re going to be taking you now to where Natasha Khan is actually down there on the bridge.”
The image switched to a reporter in a flak jacket, stepping carefully backward over rubble. She had one eye on the battle going on just past her, clearly terrified and yet getting on with her job. “I’m here with, I’d say a medical team, but it’s just one medic, who’s stayed to help another hero who may be familiar to you. I should warn you that this may be distressing.” The camera turned to find on the ground, a figure with his ribcage exposed, but not as if he’d been wounded. It was more like it was being held open, his flesh floating in mid-air.
“Goodness,” exclaimed Balkamar. “That isn’t a power set we’ve seen before. Where did this come from?! Yes, do keep your eyes away, my dear, this is all still rather gruesome.”
“Bit busy here,” the young medic in question, who was wearing a hijab, was saying to the reporter while not looking at the camera but instead trying to concentrate, her hands in the air over the man on the ground, her fingers radiating power.
“What’s your name and what exactly is it you’re doing?”
“I’m Dr. Faiza Hussain. I just got super-powers tonight from some sort of exploding Skrull machine thing. This is Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, the former Avenger, who I’m trying to heal while not really knowing what I’m doing. I keep trying to knit him back together again, and, I guess, magic, which the Skrulls seem to be controlling now, keeps on wanting to pull him apart.”
“You say the Skrulls are controlling magic?”
“I have no idea, but I keep working and something keeps trying to stop me.”
“You know there’s nobody else out here? You should really get to safety.”
“You should get to safety, Natasha. I loved you on The One Show, but I’ve got a patient here.”
“She’s doing great,” croaked Whitman.
“You know what would help?” Hussain looked up and called toward Captain Britain, who, the camera view swung to show, was once again parrying an enormous blow from that flaming sword. “Captain, break the magic! Or at least whatever’s nearby that’s using it to keep injuries open! I think it’s probably that guy you’re fighting!”
“Quite possibly!” shouted the Captain. “But at the moment it’s all I can do to hold him back! Have you heard anything from Pete?!”
“Pete?” asked the reporter. “Now, who is Pete?”
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say, he’s some sort of… secret agent. Or something. And he’s off sorting—”
The Super-Skrull gave another roar, using the Captain’s momentary distraction to nearly cut off his head, but the warrior ducked under the sword at the last second, grabbing his opponent by the throat. “I am not going to let you get any further!” he shouted.
“Your world is watching!” shouted the proud Skrull champion in return. “Even a new Captain Britain, even with the last of British magic, even with Excalibur, against our holy destiny, you can only die!” With that, he grabbed the Captain’s arms from around his throat, twisted the human aside and slammed him to the ground. The Captain yelled satisfyingly. The heroic Skrull raised his arm, doubtless aware that the human media were recording his actions, magical power building in his hand. “The last of Britain,” he said, “one tired man wearing a flag.”
His foe glared up at him. “You have no idea what this flag means,” he whispered. “It isn’t popular. It’s not a gesture. It’s about opposites just about managing to hold on together for the greater good—and it is worth so much more than anything you bring to the party.”
“Captain!” shouted the young human medic. “You need to do something now!”
“No more speeches,” said the warrior, and leapt up. To Balkamar’s horror, the speed of his attack caught the Super-Skrull off-guard.
Excalibur caught the chain around the Super-Skrull’s neck and with a shout Captain Britain heaved and shattered it.
Magical power suddenly, visibly, flashed out, roaring back into the world in a shockwave away from the bridge.
The Super-Skrull staggered back.
“Yes!” shouted the medic, and with one movement pulled her patient’s chest together.
He stared up at her in amazement. “You saved me,” he whispered.
“Mate,” said Faiza Hussain, “you’re with the NHS now.”
“I’m getting told—” The reporter was clutching her earpiece. “Okay, we’ll be taking you immediately to Northumberland National Park, to where our defense correspondent Mike Tooley and his camera crew have just been… magically teleported? Okay, over to Mike now.”
A rather startled-looking reporter stumbled a little in a circle of light beside some prehistoric stones on a night-time hillside. “We were just brought here, Natasha, and I’m about to hand you over to a representative of the security services who won’t give me his name.”
“Mike,” the voice of the previous human broke in, “I’m being told that’s Pete Wisdom.”
An annoyed-looking human in the remains of what Balkamar appreciatively noted was a finely tailored suit, his face covered in abrasions, adjusted his tie and pointed at the camera.
“All right, thanks to Captain Britain having brought the magic back, I have just done a literal deal with the… hopefully a… devil. I have had a very long night, and I have lost colleagues in battle trying to get magic back to Britain from Avalon, and I never got my supper. So—I want everyone to hear this, particularly the bloody Skrulls. I have been given the power of one wish, the results of which are just to cover the British Isles, and it is this—” Balkamar’s mouth dropped open in horror. This was just the sort of hinge moment his commanders had always feared. “—no more Skrulls.”
The sounds of cheering started to come distantly over the link. “Mike, we’re cutting back here, you have to see this!”
The view cut back to the helicopter, and Balkamar found himself weeping as he saw the Super-Skrull staggering, energy pouring from him as he started to… disintegrate. And on the banks of the river, green explosions of flesh were peppering the city. “We’re hearing that every one of the invaders is dead or dying!” shouted the human in the helicopter. “We’ve won, we’ve won, they came here and they did not pass, and, look, look!”
On the bridge, Captain Britain stepped forward, Excalibur in his hands, swinging a final blow. The head of that great Skrull hero went flying as his body combusted. With a final shout the human warrior took the sword in both hands and slammed it down into the body of the bridge itself.
Then, staggering, awkward somehow, he turned and hobbled away toward where the doctor and the knight were already getting up. “Oh no,” said Balkamar, “oh no, we’ve lost a bridgehead in a whole county, Danielle, we can’t have that, come on, there must be something…” Once again, he searched the channels.
He found a local affiliate in San Francisco, an anxious reporter at street level talking to camera, a large official building behind her. “The alien forces who have taken over the city have declared victory over all law enforcement and military agencies. The only exceptions to that are the mutant X-Men, who, for the last day or so, have been leading a guerrilla campaign in this city that’s become the mutants’ adopted home. But that may be over as I speak. The alien commander, H’Kurrek of the Skrull Imperium, has gathered what we’ve been told are over fifty thousand hostages in a large number of buildings in the heart of the city. His official announcement states that the spaceships hovering over the city are targeting those buildings. He has demanded the surrender of the X-Men within the next ten minutes, or he’ll start firing on those buildings. The announcement included a number of provisions as to how carefully the Skrulls… I’m going to have to start to get used to calling them that… how carefully they’ve protected these buildings and their ships against the mutant powers of the X-Men. Now, the human population here… we’re waiting to see if the mutants will give themselves up. Do we even want them to? We’ve seen them put their lives on the line to save, I’m sorry, I’m not sure what the correct term is, ordinary humans from the Skrulls. But now is surely the biggest test of that. I know I’m editorializing here. But if not now, when? Behind me is the Civic Center Courthouse, where we’re pretty sure we’ve seen some of the hostages being taken. We’re broadcasting here, I should say, at the sufferance of the Skrulls, who are basically using us to get their announcements across, so bear that in mind, okay, people?”
