Chapter Forty-Eight: Acts of Vengeance

The Scavenger & The Avengers
The End of the World As We Know It: Part III-8

From an unassuming rooftop on the other side of the street, the Scavenger and the rest of the Avengers looked down at Doom’s Latverian Embassy. The crowds outside had mostly dispersed, leaving only a few die-hards to stare at the building. Joe wasn’t sure if it was fear or boredom that had sent the others away.
“He won’t be expecting us to come to him,” the Scavenger said. “So we’ve got the element of surprise. But we can’t just charge in there, guns blazing. None of us are really that experienced as superheroes to begin with, and we’ve got no idea how many supervillains Doom’s got working for him. But, we’ve got to be the ones to do it. We’ve got to shut down Dr. Doom’s plan before things spin too far out of control. What we need is a way to do a little recon before we jump into the battle.”
“I’ve got it!” the Rock said. “One of us could dress up like a pizza delivery boy, and we could deliver a pizza to the embassy. Then, when they tell us we’ve got the wrong address, we could ask to use the phone. They’ll have to let us inside, and we can count how many of them there are.”
“That is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” the Scavenger said. “CJ, do you have something in your cape that might help us?”
“I can check,” Goodwill said. She began poking through her Negative Zone pocket for a useful gadget.
“Sarah,” the Scavenger continued. “We might end up having to rely on your illusion powers. Get a good look at the Embassy and all its features, because you may just end up emulating it. “
“Got it,” Dreamboat Annie said.
“I still think my plan could work,” the Rock said.
“No,” said the Scavenger.
“Could we try it?” the Rock asked.
“No!” said the Scavenger.
“What if it’s the last plan we try out?”
“No.”
“Okay, what if it’s the first plan we try out?”
“No.”
“What if we get Deaf Leopard to do it?”
“NO!”

Volcana stayed in her human form as she swung the door to the Embassy open. Outside, a nervous-looking Hispanic kid was holding some kind of box. Volcana didn’t suspect a trap.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Uh... pizza delivery?” the kid said. Volcana thought for a moment. “Hold on a sec,” she said. “Let me see if the Doc ordered a pizza.” She turned back into the embassy. Carlos sprang forward as soon as her attention shifted, transmuting his body in mid-air to the form of: the Deaf Leopard! Because she looked like she was probably a good tipper, Volcana was spared the brunt of the Deaf Leopard’s rage; instead of his claws, the young antihero pressed the flat of his hand hard into Volcana’s chin. Her combat reflexes dulled by years spent living in quiet suburbia with the infamous Molecule Man, Volcana didn’t have time to shift into her armored fire-form before the Deaf Leopard’s assault knocked her out, cold.
Suddenly, alarms blared from all corners of the Embassy. An emotionless, vaguely feminine mechanical voice reported conflict in the upper foyer, and ordered all superhumans on-site to the area. Within the superhuman form of the Deaf Leopard, Carlos missed the warning entirely. It was only the flash of movement he caught from the corner of his eye that gave him notice. Springing into the air at the last moment, the Deaf Leopard barely avoided being seared by Electro’s bolt of lightning. The bolt continued forward through the space where the Deaf Leopard had been, fortuitously striking a surprised Speed Demon, who had been coming around from behind. As Speed Demon’s muscles buckled, the Deaf Leopard twisted to avoid Oddball’s gas grenade and the spray of machine gun fire from Arsenal’s weapon. Feeling way too exposed in the center of the room, he leapt for the nearest doorway, ducking just in time underneath Whirlwind’s blades. A leg sweep sent the spinning villain flying into Oddball’s gas cloud, where he was instantly joined by one of Bombshell’s explosive blasts. The Deaf Leopard looked back into the roomful of villains- and froze in place.
“Sacre bleu!” came the chant from behind him. “You ‘ave bean- ‘ow do you say?- frozen by ze powair of ze incroyable Grey Gargoyle! Wat would you say for yourself now, if ze stone form I ‘ave convairted you to would let you speak?”
“He would say,” the Scavenger answered from the entryway as the door to the embassy was suddenly blown open by a Wonder-Blast, “That he was our point man, sent in to draw you all together in one place. And he would say it without that outrageous accent. Dreamboat Annie! Rock! Goodwill! Electric Youth! Hit ‘em! Avengers Assemble!”

Oddball pitched three more gas-spheres at the group, hoping to catch them all in the same place. Goodwill was there, and, with a sweep of her cape, drew the bombs into the folds of the Negative Zone. “Oh,” she said. “So that’s where I got those.” Her hand plunged after the balls into her cape, and withdrew a long metal pole, which she immediately used to bat away Bombshell’s attack. The explosive tore open a hole in the floor of the embassy. CJ separated the pole into its two component battle-staves, and hurled one back at Bombshell, catching the assassin in the arm. The other crashed into one of the balls Oddball still wore on his costume, sending the neuralizing shock he’d intended for his foes into the mad juggler himself. Oddball went down for the count.
With the force and gravity of his namesake, the Rock landed feet-first on the Grey Gargoyle’s chest. The stone villain was staggered momentarily, but managed to bring his right hand to bear against the hero’s leg. Dylan was frozen, stone-still, and landed against the body of his teammate.
Sparks flew as Electric Youth and Electro’s powers clashed overhead. Suddenly, Red Ghost and his Super-Apes burst from yet another part of the embassy. The super-strong gorilla charged for Electric Youth, but suddenly, the Scavenger was there, driving the monkey back with a wave of his Sunsword. He fired off a couple of shots in the Grey Gargoyle’s direction, but neither shot broke the villain’s stony hide. Aresenal ducked back into the parlor, grabbed a throw pillow from the couch, and tossed it at the Scavenger; it was a mine before it left the villain’s hand. It was a throw pillow when it crashed into the Scavenger, and he didn’t even notice; he was too busy holding back the boa constrictor that had been a monkey moments before. The Scavenger did notice, however, when a bolt of solidified sound, courtesy of the newly-appeared Klaw, knocked him back into the hole made by Bombshell’s explosion. The Vibranium charm Joe wore shielded him from most of the blast, but the fall had left him winded. Even worse, the Raiders, a trio of has-been armored thieves, came blasting their way from three corners of the room the Scavenger now found himself in. Things didn’t look good for the newest Avengers....
Then, with a crash, the adjoining walls of the Latverian embassy came crashing down. Electro collapsed as the wall behind him fell inward, and Electric Youth collapsed immediately afterward, momentarily drained. Silhouetted atop the rubble was the Warrior Prince of Asgard, Thor, and his stalwart companions, the Warriors Three! “Of course!” someone shouted in the confusion. “They’re from another dimension, too! They wouldn’t be affected!” The Grey Gargoyle, still on the outskirts of the battle, was the first to react. He leapt forward, and pressed his palm against Thor’s chest. “He’s gone crazy!” Fandrall the Dashing said in a surprisingly well-mimicked Brooklyn accent. “He’s attacking us now!” Piledriver’s fist came swining out of Fandrall’s body, knocking the Grey Gargoyle to the other side of the room. The Grey Gargoyle fell unconscious, the Wrecker’s stone body fell over, and Dreamboat Annie let her illusion fade. A pink fist of solid sound swept in behind her then, knocking Annie into the same corner (and same state of well-being) as the Grey Gargoyle.
Electric Youth scrambled to cross the room, doing his best to avoid the ever-widening pit in the middle of the room, as well as Arsenal’s flamethrower that had once been a lamp. Meanwhile, the Scavenger fired a few wide shots from his Wonder-Glove at the nearest Raider, only to suddenly discover that his Wonder-Glove was gone. Speed Demon waved the glove maliciously at Joe from the other side of the room. The Scavenger blinked, and his paste-vest joined the pile next to Speed Demon. The Raiders looked on, amused by the game Speed Demon was playing. Speed Demon raced forward again, and Joe’s hand shot to his pocket, stabbing the button on his CESU just before the villain arrived. The Scavenger’s remaining weapons vanished, but it wasn’t Speed Demon’s doing. Confused, the villain ran a quick lap back to where he’d been. Then, realizing his opponent was now helpless, he charged. Joe knew that Speed Demon was prepared for any one of his weapons- not that he could summon them back again in time anyway. But then, he also knew he had one weapon Speed Demon wasn’t expecting. Using all of his remaining Karma, praying to God, and thinking about how much he FUCKING HATES super-speedsters, Joe threw his CESU directly at the charging villain. The hard metal sphere struck Speed Demon right between the eyes, adding its velocity to his own. At that speed, the force of the collision was enough to break Speed Demon’s nose, not to mention take one more villain out of the fight. Joe was as surprised that maneuver worked as the Raiders were, and it took a split second for everyone to recover. The Raiders fired as Joe leapt for his CESU....

CJ reached into her cape for another weapon as she crossed the distance between herself and Bombshell. Deciding that the Ultimate Nullifier wasn’t worth activating, CJ settled for slamming the all-powerful weapon into the side of Bombshell’s head before carefully putting it back into her Negative Pocket. Electric Youth ducked under a bookcase repelled in his direction by the Red Ghost’s mutant orangutan, the rolled over one of Piledriver’s massive fists to land directly on top of Electro’s body. The villain’s electric energy poured through Electric Youth’s body, straight back into those fists of Piledriver’s. Unable to handle such a massive shock to the system, both Piledriver and Electric Youth joined the ranks of the defeated. Goodwill struggled with the buckle on Bombshell’s vest of explosives, when she saw Thunderball’s massive weapon crash through the floor next to her. That blow was the last the floor could handle, and with a shudder, the entire room gave way, dropping everyone into the lower level. Goodwill was caught halfway up by the remaining man in Raider armor, who then tossed her back into the fray. Rolling with the throw, Goodwill landed a solid boot against the side of Arsenal’s head. The force of her momentum knocked the villain unconscious, but Goodwill’s awkward landing left her vulnerable to any number of follow-up attacks. In the wake of their fall, Thunderball drew his weapon back in, only then noticing that Goodwill had twisted Bombshell’s explosive vest around the end of the ball- setting each one to time-delayed explosions. The blast fried Thunderball as the Raider used the hypersonics in his armor to stun the shapeshifted baboon. Then, pressing the button on his CESU once more, the Scavenger returned to his much more familiar costume, landing disco-skate-first on top of the Red Ghost’s orangutan, tossing in one Wonder Blast each to finish off the two smaller Super-Apes. Another high-frequency blast from Klaw sent the Scavenger skidding into a still-worn Goodwill as the two Wonder-Blasts he’d intended for Klaw mangled the ceiling instead. Klaw leveled his sonic projector at the pair, ready to finish the job. Before he could fire, though, Klaw’s projector was suddenly mangled by a fist of solid stone.
“Took... too... long...” the Rock tried to manage. “...drop... density... move.” Even without his sonic powers, though, Klaw was still no pushover. He swatted the rock Rock aside with a mighty backhand, and moved in to finish the job in person. Finally in a clear space, Bulldozer reveled in his ability to charge, taking aim at Goodwill, who was standing, apparently still dazed, in the center of the room. Beyond her, the Red Ghost’s monstrously powerful gorilla roared, ready for its own attack. So, when Bulldozer passed right through Goodwill, he went careening instead into the beast’s enormous flank. The gorilla (the Russian one) fell over as Goodwill, still too weak to stand, hastily retrieved her image inducer. “Dreamboat Annie, eat your heart out,” she managed to say.
“Nice try, dear, but I am not fooled,” the disembodied voice of the Red Ghost taunted as his very solid foot sent CJ into dreamland. Meanwhile, the Scavenger had already tackled Klaw, pushing the villain away from the Rock. As the two grappled, Bulldozer tried again with a charge at the Rock. Knowing that his stone body would never dodge in time, the Rock instead pushed his power to the limits, becoming as dense as he could imagine. Immovable object and unstoppable force collided, and in the aftermath, both Bulldozer and the Rock collapsed. After rolling with a handful of Klaw’s punches, Joe pulled the Vibranium charm from his neck, and jammed it with all his might into Klaw’s solid-sound body. Klaw screamed as his coherency was shaken apart by the charm. Joe, meanwhile, was pounded again and again with waves of solid sound. Across the room, the Red Ghost turned solid and visible as the shrill screams of Klaw’s disintegration proved to be too much for him. Seconds later, Klaw all but vanished, left only as an echo ringing through the walls of the Latverian Embassy. The Scavenger took note, confirmed that every single other combatant had been defeated, and then, himself, passed out.