[11_days]
[_ago]

The pyramidal monolith stirred awake, mewling with an otherworldly trill. The intense bone-clattering sound was soon matched by a searing pulse of light. Blinding swirls of viscous rainbow spilled out of the gap in the device. A prismatic glow bathed the man standing before it. 

He smiled.

Between blinks, the undulating light stitched together a humanoid shadow until it too poured out of the machine. 

The arriving figure was smartly attired in a plunging-neckline black dress that ran mid-thigh. It was dotted up the front with oversized white buttons that served form, not function. Pulled over her frame was a cropped black-leather motorcycle jacket with copper adornments. Her mutant-green hair spilled down her shoulders in subtle waves. It was the look of a powerful woman. Like poison dart frogs—whose appearances are both mesmerizing and startling—she displayed just how deadly she was.

“You came,” spoke the man standing before the apparatus, a smirk still hung on his face.

“It’s not everyday someone builds me a teleporter, Stark.”

Tony Stark. One of the world’s most preeminent minds. Far and away, its best engineer, without rival. Also its armored avenger, Iron Man. A narcissist with a god complex, and a womanizer with an addictive personality. Those are just the highlights.

“Nowhere’s worth going if you can’t go in style, Lor—”

“The name’s Polaris,” she interrupted. “We don’t use human deadnames on Krakoa.”

Polaris, formerly Lorna Dane. A woman whose mutant abilities allow her to bend and manipulate magnetic fields to her will. Something she has ample supply of, steeled over years of being one of the most feared in a world that fears and hates her kind.

“Sure, absolutely. Whatever you want, Polaris. I can respect that.”

“Speaking of Krakoa,” Polaris turned back to face the teleporter that delivered her. “Your teleporter looks a lot like ours, Stark.”

Accusation spilled heavily from her lips.

“I admit,” Stark lifted his palms in feigned arrest. “I got the idea after seeing the Krakoa Gates, but trust me, mine are better. Way better. 

“You see, while your guys hop along teleporting beanstalks, there’s a few gods that owe me favors. I called one in. Stark Gates are 100% tech-mated Bifrost receivers. As long as a user has an endpoint on them, they can be scooped up anywhere.”

“Anywhere?” 

More accusation.

“Well, no. Not Krakoa.”

“That means you tried.”

“Of course,” his smirk bent slightly. “I mean, I had to give it a shot. See what was behind door number three. You never see what’s behind door number three.”

“Beast might humor your scientific abandon, Stark, but I’m not made as good-natured.”

“Right, right. About that.” Stark paused, letting his cloying bravado dissipate. “I want you to trust me. I need you to trust me. Seeing Krakoa made me realize The Avengers have never done right by mutants. Not really. We’ve been at each other’s throats as much as we haven’t, and we’ve never accomplished a fraction of what Krakoa has for mutants. I want to fix that.”

“Why me? I’m sure Beast is more than amenable.”

“Oh, he is, and he’s coming along for the ride, but he’s not enough.

“At heart, I’m a mechanic, an engineer. I’m best at building stuff, and fixing things. When it comes to operating them, though, well, you said it, abandon.

“I want to fix this. I want to fix the world. I can fix it, everything. But I need mutants at the table. Maybe more now than ever. And I need someone that can keep me in check once the engine spins up. Keep everything running. I need someone who can take me out if it comes to that.”

“A magnet to control—or destroy—the Iron Man?”

“I mean it sounds pretty harsh when you say it, but, yeah, that.”

“Oh, that I can do, Tony Stark.”

Polaris grinned.

[KOWLOON_Bay]
[hong_kong]

---

[today_]
[_morning]

Waves gently slapped the underside of the vessel, tugging it from side to side as it bobbed calmly in the water. As the tide played its soothing lullaby, the rhythmic slosh of water against the wooden sampan was joined by the noisy crunch of shrimp crackers between teeth. The fisherman aboard the boat tugged at his fishing line, let it slack, and then stuck another cracker between his teeth, munching down.

Another sampan passed slowly by under duress, its motor sputtering on heavy plumes of petrol. 

“Any bites?” The passing fisherman called out to the other.

The fisherman waved his hand in front of his face dismissively to signal that the fish weren’t biting. He chewed loudly through the remainder of the shrimp crackers, before looking up again at the passing boat. 

Only to see it vanish beneath the water and infinite shark fins. 

The vessel splintered as it was dragged under, a dirge of snapping wood and human screams. The fisherman stood weakly as the water around him bloomed red with blood. Bits of shrimp cracker cud fell from his mouth, agape in horror.

A dervish of countless shark fins then writhed toward his bearing. The first maw raised out of the depths—a rakehell abomination of roiling black fangs and hundreds of hungry eyes—and tore the boat apart between its teeth.

The beast cooed excitedly as the fishermen plunged beneath the brine. They quickly pulled him apart, piece by piece.

The monster festered across the bay; tendrils of starving black death compelled to feed. They tore through dozens of recreational fishing craft, consuming flesh, fiberglass and metal alike, ever starved.

A mass of alien fangs merged into a single maw desperate to drag down larger prey. It tore through the belly of the container ship “Amity,” gnawing at the sweet treats within. Dying, the vessel belched black oil into the sea as hundreds of containers slid below the surface. Those too were consumed as were any contents within; sweet morsels picked clean before they crashed to the sea floor.

It wasn’t enough.

It turned toward Kai Tak Cruise Terminal and two slumbering cruise ships. In a harrowing flash of shadow beneath the surface, the creatures snapped upon the ships all at once. Slimy appendages of unnatural darkness festooned the immense luxury liners, thrashing bulwarks against the terminal docks. Upon the web gripping the ships, a spine of shark fins rippled, and thorns of teeth bloomed sinking deep into the hulls. And then they began to rend. The teeth sought flesh and blood, gobbling up any it could find. The lucky few to escape tossed themselves from the vessels, crashing in heaps of broken bones to the dock below. This angered the ravenous monster, which spat fanged tendrils after them, dragging its leftovers back to the feast. One by one, it supped on the fleeing souls, dragging them beneath its swampy black stew.

From those fortunate to still have their voices, screams filled the air. 

And then a rupture. The sound of thunder gathering in the air as beneath the clouds, a giant black iris ripped through the air. From the center of its deep black pupil plummeted a figure, chased by crackling black smoke. The figure crashed into the top deck of one of the cruise ships, its arrivals masked in the tumultuous groans in the sky. And then, silence. The eye disappeared. As if it had never been there.

But the beast knew what had come. It could smell her. It could taste her. And it was hungry. The tendrils swarmed up the side of the cruise ship, ripping from the vessel high above like a dark tidal wave, blotting the sun and drenching the female on the ship’s surface in shadow.

For her part, she waved, as if to say, “found me.”

The famished black tsunami crested, and as it crashed, the surface of the ship beneath ruptured. Another black eye opened, and the woman was gone.

The monster hissed hungrily.

Another eye opened. And another. Then another. Never for longer than a blink.

Each time the beast would chase its prey, and every time its infinite garden of teeth were left expectant.

One last time an eye burst open, tears of black sludge spilling over, followed by several gallons of seawater. As the eye slammed shut, it spewed a gnarled sea monster, a face of hundreds of eyes, and countless more teeth; its skin drenched in ghoulish black slime.

“Found you,” the woman said with a labored exhale. “Nasty little thing, aren’t you?”

She stepped gently down from the open portal, soaked to the bone with saltwater. The beast lay before her, sucking air and drowning. Its gills surging frantically to hold onto its remaining seconds of life. Eyes and teeth began to slough away, pooling to the ship deck as it died. Slowly, it revealed the simple shark beneath the alien influence.

“What the hell did you get into?”

The woman bent in close, examining the creature.

Within a blink, the same thing got into her. Grace Tam—Vector—agent of SPEAR and superhero was gone. Consumed. A crackling black eye ripped open, and it stepped through.

---

Issue cast

---

[7_DAYS]
[_AGO]

The arrival chamber filled with an ethereal kaleidoscope of colors as another figure stepped from the Stark Gate. As the rainbow of light receded, definition returned to the imposing figure. A broad-shouldered, coiled spring of sinewy muscle, and covered head to toe in dense blue fur. Doctor Henry “Hank” McCoy, the mutant called Beast. A gentle giant, until he isn’t.

Tony Stark awaited the arrival of his long-time co-Avenger as he clambered down the ramp.

“What ya got for me, Hank?”

“Young Master Amadeus has agreed.” Beast adjusted spectacles displaced across his nose during teleportation. “He’s an exuberant young fellow, isn’t he?”

“Smart as a whip, too. One he’ll crack on our asses if we don’t keep up.”

“Yes, well, I can take my lashings if that’s the worst thing to come from this little experiment of yours, old friend.”

Both men crossed the distance from the Stark Gate to the elevator and stepped inside upon its arrival.

“I know, I know. It’s a bit excessive. Not by my standards, but you get it. I just don’t want to leave any stone unturned.”

“About that,” Beast chuckled, scratching his furry chin. “Under which of those rocks did you find Otto Octavius, pray tell?”

“He’s Spider-Man now, or a Spider-Man, something. I don’t really understand it, but how many of us have just needed a chance to prove we’re not what everyone thinks we are?”

Beast clapped a paw down on his friend’s armored shoulder, and smiled. 

“Put away your pointed arguments for now, Anthony. You’ll undoubtedly need them to persuade others, but not me.”

The elevator trilled, and halted, the doors sliding apart with a gentle hiss. On their opposite was a long room stretched into a thin corridor. Its curved and undulating architecture was dipped entirely in white, and even the massive circular portholes that dotted the corridor were filled with neon white light. Fixed between these neon facades were virtual screens and displays of teals and greens that bled into the hallway. At one end of the long walkway was a stainless steel disc that functioned as a conference table. Even from this draw distance, the sterile environment made it easy to pick up Polaris, and her shock of green hair, sitting at the table.

As both men approached, she swiveled in her chair toward them. “How’d we do, boys?”

“Hank got us Cho,” Stark began. “T’Challa’s busy with… Wakanda stuff, I think. But he’s gonna send us somebody. And he gave us Avengers Mountain if we need it for anything.”

“Pretty ostentatious of you Avengers,” Polaris rankled. “Slapping your name on a mountain.”

“You’re an Avenger now; embrace it,” Tony chuckled. “Technically…not a mountain. More like the belly of a several-millennia-old cosmic entity.”

“Can’t be worse than this place.”

“Hey now. Detroit is one of America’s finest cities. An epicenter of culture and engineering. It’s seen better days, sure, but that’s part of what we’re building here. While the Avengers Engine tackles massive threats, we’ll also build an arm for philanthropy; helping rebuild communities.”

“Not Detroit, Tin Man. I meant in here. It feels like it was designed by someone with more money than—”

“If the two of you wouldn’t mind,” Beast interjected. “Might we proceed with the task at hand?”

Polaris swiveled back toward the conference table while Beast and Stark took two of the remaining eleven seats.

“Motherboard, let’s look at the current avengers-dot-engine threat matrix,” ordered Stark. “And let’s add Amadeus Cho on theoretical threats.”

“Of course, Tony,” responded the staccato female voice of the facility’s onboard AI system.

A column of teal light flickered out from the Avengers ‘A’ at the center of the table, showing the three at the table a perspective-responsive GUI. Represented on the digital interface was a center circle punctuated with 12 other circles, each representing a threat type. Most of which had the name of an Avenger that would “chair” each Spoke in the threat matrix.

“We can add Tempo’s name to Spoke eleven, temporal threats,” Polaris added. “She’ll be on the Marauder when it leaves in a few days, and we can pick her up then.”

“All right, so where does that leave us?”

“T’Challa being otherwise occupied leaves us in need of a chair for subterfuge threats, which we can add to the remaining two: martial and cosmic.”

“Right. Jimmy Woo’s got a line on somebody for Martial, and I might have another idea for Subterfuge. Bit of a dark horse pick,” Stark sighed. “I can’t believe I just called him that.”

[NYC_]
[_USA]

---

[5_DAYS]
[_AGO]

“Let me get this straight, Tony. At the top of your list of Avengers who could lead your group on subterfuge missions, you picked the guy who wears red and white stripes, and has wings on the side of his head?”

“Get over yourself, Rogers,” Stark snapped. “It’s not like you were my first choice.”

“Then you are smarter than you look,” Steve Rogers laughed.

Steve Rogers, Captain America. The star-spangled man with a plan. A soldier out of time. One of the greatest heroes to ever do it, in any generation. And sometimes, a drinking partner to Tony Stark.

“Yuck it up, old man,” Stark leaned across the table. “I just figured you might need something to keep you busy.”

The two men sat together, exact opposites of one another. Steve in a grey Champion sweatshirt, blue denim jeans, and a brown leather bomber. Tony in a loud, green Tom Ford suit, with a silk polka-dot tie tied in a chunky, garish balthus knot.

When Steve picks up the shield, he is a symbol of something far greater than himself. When Stark puts on the armor, he is a monument to his own greatness.

“I’ve been keeping the engine running,” Steve smiled, taking a swig of the beer he’d been nursing.

“Then how about we put some more mileage on those tires. Let’s get this right.”

“Just tell me one thing… is this really about ‘getting it right’ this time, or is this about you being right?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Stark shook his head. “I know what I want the answer to be. Listen, I hate what our legacy might be. We’ve saved the world more times than years you’ve been alive. But I don’t want the Avengers to just be something that stopped the world from getting worse. I want us to leave this place better than we found it.”

“Tony—” another sip. “Did you just quote the boy scouts at me?”

“Giving you the hard sell, here.” Tony chuckled, lifted his Arnold Palmer to his lips, and chugged it back. “Oh, and we do this, you gotta leave the wings at home.”

“Hey, Tony…”

“Yeah, Cap?”

 “Skal, buddy.” 

The long-time teammates raised their drinks and clinked them.

[DETROIT_]
[_USA]

---

[3_DAYS]
[_AGO]

“So… what exactly is it you’re putting in my arm?”

“Oh, this little thing?” Beast sat the nanotech dispersion unit flat in his palm, showing his patient. “This will inject the nanotechnology receiver for the Stark Gates into your bloodstream so that you’re always connected to them.”

“Yeah—yeah, totally.”

“In layman’s terms, Miss Wing, it means that it doesn’t matter where you are; anywhere in the nine realms, you can access—or be retrieved using—the Stark Gates. I assure you it is perfectly harmless.”

Colleen Wing, Daughter of the Dragon. She and her sister-at-arms Misty Knight are who Luke Cage and Iron Fist call when the two Avengers need their asses saved. Actual daughter of a legendary Hand assassin. She’s also one of the world’s greatest martial artists and sword fighters.

“Thanks,” nodded Colleen. “Are they really called… Stark Gates?”

“I’m afraid so. However, between you and me, I much prefer the term ‘Dimensional Bifurcation Apparatus’.”

“You’re not serious, are you?”

“Of course not. If I’m honest, I’m partial to calling them ‘sparkly rainbow doors,’ but that will have to be our little secret.”

“Secret’s safe with me, doc,” Colleen chuckled. “Okay, give it to me.”

“Actually, I administered your injection a few seconds ago. Right around the time I confided in you my appreciation for shiny doorways. You are, in fact, free to go.”

“Oh—wow. Thanks.” 

Colleen rolled down her sleeve, and stood up from the lab stool.

“Hey, can this be our little secret too?” she asked, motioning to her arm with her eyes.

“Most assuredly, Miss Wing.” Beast smiled.

As Colleen left Beast’s lab, Polaris walked in. They nodded as they passed, both strangers to this world and each other. They understood teammates in the sense that they’ve been part of teams many times, and even with some of the Avengers assembled now. But for them, “teammate” was often indistinguishable from “family.” This was something else. At least for now.

“We good in here, Beast?”

“Indeed. Miss Wing was the last of the Avengers that have checked in to receive the nanotech.”

“Avengers. Right.” Polaris’ lips curled, and a small sigh pushed between them. “Tell me this isn’t insane. Tell me that this is better than being on Krakoa; better than being there for our people.”

“Oh my dear, Polaris.” Beast closed the gap between them, giving her a literal shoulder to lean on. “These are our brethren, try as we might to claim otherwise. And if we can provide them with half of the tranquility of what we have now with Krakoa, then that will be a day unlike any other.”

“Right. Yes. Right.” Polaris pushed herself back to a full stand, and nodded. “Who hasn’t made their way here yet?”

“Quasar, Captain America’s nomination for the Cosmic Spoke is still offworld but in communication, and since Sif controls the Bifrost itself, Tony believes the nanotech would be redundant.”

“Alright, let’s do this, then.”

“But of course. As it has a tendency to be said around here: Avengers assemble.” 

[DETROIT_]
[_USA]

---

[Now]

The twelve heroes all gathered around the massive steel disc. Some gathered in person, while others were holographic representations beamed in from all over spacetime. Some had done this nearly their entire lives, while for others it was their first. All of them Avengers when placed around the emblematic ‘A’ etched into the face of the table.

An uneasy silence reverberated through the gulf of distance between the newly assembled team. 

“Don’t wait on my account. We’re all here, assembled. Let’s get to work,” prompted Stark, his voice defusing the nervous energy. “Jimmy, you rang the bell, this is your show.”

“Of course. Thanks, Tony,” spoke the image of Jimmy Woo, bathed in holographic light.

As one of the world’s greatest spymasters, Jimmy Woo has had a front row seat to some of its most insidious plots, and had a hand in bringing them down. Currently in San Francisco where he toppled one the world’s most sinister and pervasive secret societies this side of Hydra. Taking leadership of the organization, he and his recruited heroes have its limitless resources in both bleeding-edge technology and ancient sorcery to tamp down the fires it once stoked.

“My contacts within Chinese spookshop SPEAR smuggled out satellite footage from this morning. You should all have it on the interface… now.”

The twelve interfaces plinked softly as the footage was sent and began to play.

“This is Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong,” resumed Jimmy. “Within fifteen minutes, an alien aggressor sank twenty-two vessels. There are 712 dead, estimated.”

The video jumped to the arrival of a woman, teleporting in from the sky and dropping to the deck of an infested cruise ship.

“This is Grace Tam, a SPEAR agent sent to de-escalate the threat,” Jimmy continued. “As you’ll see, she was quite successful. However, that’s where things get worse.”

The twelve Avengers watched as the roiling black monster wasted away, leaving just an ordinary shark gagging for air. On its dying breath it lurched for Grace, swallowing the unsuspecting hero. The creature swirled and gurgled, chewing at her flesh before gnawing deeper until it consumed her whole. Until it became her, or a nightmare version of her. And then a portal opened, and then tainted Grace Tam vanished.

“Oh, no—” Colleen gasped.

“It gets worse,” explained Jimmy. “Obviously, Grace is a teleporter, and a trained operative. If the alien organism could kill almost a thousand people within minutes while piggybacking a simple tiger shark, there’s no telling what it might do with her abilities and training.”

“And I take it we’re not supposed to have this footage?” asked Stark.

“In theory, this hasn’t happened yet,” Jimmy nodded. “No telling when it will hit official channels, but by then the number of casualties could be—”

“In the millions,” Amadeus Cho interjected. “There’re 2.1 million people in Kowloon alone. It’s the most densely populated area in the world. To quantify, that’s two million people in 18 square miles.”

In a room filled with a handful of the world’s most intelligent people, Amadeus Cho might be the brightest. When it came to someone chairing the theoretical threat Spoke, both Tony Stark and Jimmy Woo were unanimous that it had to be Amadeus. It helped that the kid was a Hulk, by design. The perfect combination of brains and brawn.

“Sounds like a job for the Avengers,” Stark responded.

“I agree, Tony,” joined the hologram of Captain America. “But let me guess, this needs to be off the books?”

“That would be my preference, yeah.” The digital visage of Jimmy Woo nodded.

“Okay, so let’s solve the problem.” Tony Stark looked around at the team he just finished collecting. “What do we know—anybody have any ideas?”

“Her means of teleportation is actually transdimensional travel.” The female speaker’s voice was regal and stern, punctuated by a lifetime of both knowledge and torment. “I recognize the arcane energy signals emitted during arrival; it’s Darkforce.”

“That’s great, Clea,” responded Stark. “Who do you have as subject-matter experts on this?”

Clea Strange was born into magic. She is the daughter, and the wife of magic. A queen to several mystical dimensions, there is nothing in the supernatural beyond her understanding.

“I haven’t been able to track Tyrone and Tandy down—they would be most intimately familiar—but if you need the supernatural hunted, I can think of no one better than Elsa Bloodstone.”

“Bring her in. Okay, team, what else? What do we know about ‘attack of the killer slime’ there? Is it related to the Darkforce?”

“No,” Clea answered. “The Darkforce Dimension is more of a conduit than a place. Almost nothing lives there, and definitely not this.”

“Clea’s right,” added Captain America. “I know what this is. It’s a symbiote, and one specifically—Carnage.”

“How the hell do you know that, Steve?” Concern visibly knitted across Tony’s face.

“Apparently whenever a symbiote bonds with a host, there’s an exchange that happens. Little pieces of one goes with the other, forever. The last time Carnage rampaged through New York, it bonded with me.”

“Are you telling me there’s a little Captain Carnage inside the red, white, and blue?”

“No. No, I don’t think so,” Cap answered solemnly. “Spider-Man, Wolverine, all of us had the ‘codex’ removed by Reed Richards from another universe. I just know its methods; that’s him.”

“In the grand tradition of this team, not the weirdest thing we’ve dealt with,” chuckled Stark. “So we have a serial killer symbiote with an insatiable hunger and an all you can eat buffet, and then he was snacked on a teleporter.”

“I’ve updated my calculations, guys,” Cho interjected. “With the new power scaling data, a behavioral profile of Carnage, and a probability-mapping of likely attack patterns… if we don’t isolate the symbiote within twelve hours, it’s gonna murder 3.6 million people.”

“We need an expert on symbiotes,” Cap responded. “Wendell, anyone you can bring in, and fast?”

Wendell Vaughn, Quasar. An agent of SHIELD, and being of pure quantum energy. A spy who can punch suns.

“Absolutely, Cap,” Wendell answered. Behind his holographic representation sprawled a galaxy of countless stars as he floated aimlessly through space. “Since I got the call, I’ve been dropping lines to experts on all the expected Cosmic threats; symbiotes being one. I’ve got a guy all lined up: an Anti-Venom.”

“Eddie Brock or Flash Thompson?”

The voice belonged to a man outfitted like Spider-Man. Only with the addition of four sentient, mechanical limbs. Doctor Otto Octavius. Long-time foe of Spider-Man; usually sinister. Now he’s one of a few Spider-Men. And an Avenger.

“Flash is a good little soldier,” Otto nodded. “We’ve got our symbiote anathema, and a supernatural hunter. This leaves only the problem of the teleporter.”

“What are you thinking, Otto?” Prodded Stark.

“It might behoove us to send along a tracker,” he responded. “And I know just the tool for the job.”

“All right, that gives us Elsa Bloodstone, Anti-Venom, and Otto’s tracker,” Stark paused. “What are we missing?”

“I agree these are the best individuals for the threat,” Jimmy Woo responded. “But none of them have worked together. This has to be strictly covert, no mishaps. We can’t just send all of us with them, and especially the personification of American symbols. No offense, Cap.”

“None taken,” Cap responded. “Clint would be perfect for this, but he turned me down.”

“That might be my fault,” interjected Colleen Wing. “I got to him first, for the Martial Spoke. Not, uh, really sure what the rules are on double dipping.”

“As long as he’s with us, that’s a win in my book,” Cap chuckled.

“All right, let’s get them here, ASAP,” Stark concluded. “The rest of us can quarterback from our locations.”

“About that, sir,” interrupted the canny, slightly artificial voice of Motherboard. “We’ve got a high-priority alert from a Stark-Fujikawa satellite.”

“When it rains, it pours,” sighed Stark. “Okay, give it to us.”

“A few minutes ago, an explosion rocked the rooftop of a Ginza skyscraper in Tokyo. Sending the footage now.”

Streamed footage was instantly sent to twelve leads of the Avengers Threat Matrix. It showed a building top cratered like a volcano and spewing flames and smoke. The nearby skyline choked on billowing fields of ashen grey, which would occasionally flare with the crackling of energy. The signs of combat. The kind the Avengers were used to.

As the view from the satellite magnified, it began to pick up details against the smoldering skyscraper. The wind poked holes in the billowing smoke, revealing the combatants.

One of whom, dressed in finely tailored military suiting from a bygone generation, had a bright red skull.

“My god,” muttered Cap. “That’s Red Skull.”

“MODOK’s ugly mug is there, too,” Stark added.

“I’d recognize the fishbowl and Mysterio’s parlor tricks anywhere,” Otto claimed.

They watched as, one-by-one, some of their greatest combined villains—Red Skull, MODOK, Mysterio, Ruby Thursday, Dr. Sun, and The Orb—were revealed in conflict with hundreds of technological chimeras. Pieces of armor combined with televisions screens, and electric cars mashed into toy soldiers, seemingly possessed.

“Anybody got an idea what they’re doing?” The question came from Amadeus Cho. The guy responsible for coming up with the theories.

“I don’t know the what—” Stark confided. “But I have a hunch on the who.”

Silence again filled the Avenger teleconference.

“There’s a powerful technopath—and criminal overlord—in Tokyo. If I’m right, we need to get there immediately. We take who we have here, now, and we bring the fight to them.”