Baron Mordo screamed in pain as he appeared at the base of the Empire State Building.
“Stupid!” He cursed himself as he wiped flecks of blood from his eyes. “Of course he’s put up a blocking spell, and you call yourself the Sorcerer Supreme!”
He looked up at the scene that would’ve been straight out of Hollywood if this was a movie. A giant swirling portal had opened above the building. The sound of snarling brought his attention back to street level as a wolf man leapt at him.
“Crimson Cage of Cyttorak!” Mordo gestured as red energy caged the beast. All around wolfmen and wolfwomen were tearing into each other and also those who weren’t affected. Mordo snapped his fingers, surrounding himself in a Shield of Seraph, as he thought about what actions to take. He could see that when wolves when they bit or scratched someone spread their lycanthropy but at an alarming rate. It would take mere seconds once blood had been drawn for the change to occur and the change was violent and dramatic.
“Acute haemorrhagic hyper lycanthropus,” mused The Mad Thinker as he and Awesome Andy appeared next to Mordo. “But you’re the expert on these things. Karl.”
“Nice to see you again Thinker. You as well, Andy.” Mordo extended his shield to cover them all as a man in a large metal suit hovered overhead firing laser bursts at a pack of wolves to corral and funnel them away from a panicking tour group caught in the chaos.
“Is that Tony Stark?” asked Mordo as he saw another man arrive on the scene dressed in green. “And who is that?”
Thinker looked up the man in green creating a localised tornado to sweep up those wolves who’d been hemmed in by the metal man. “Whirlwind, I believe. Andy would you mind?” Thinker nodded at the caged wolfman. Awesome Andy reached in and grabbed it by the neck. Angered the creature lashed out but the resilient grey skin of Andy took merely cosmetic damage. Thinker produced a needle and injected a needle into the wolf’s neck. “If I can get some time to analyse this sample I may be able to work up a vaccine.”
“Off all the freakin’ nights to come to New York,” said Whirlwind as he landed in the centre of the dazed werepeople and let loose a flurry of punches and kicks.
The metal man landed near Mordo, a wolf chomping down on his arm but to no avail. With a toss he threw the wolf creature into the side of the Empire State Building. “Someone know what’s going on? I tried to fly up to the top but…”
“This Thriller! Thriller night!” laughed Whirlwind looking at the quartet a she stood amongst a dozen unconscious wolf people. “Seriously? You don’t know Thriller? You’re all old. And cool gorilla by the way!”
Thinker smiled, the pulse field to protect his identity often made people think Awesome Andy was a dinosaur or a gorilla or something that their brain could process.
“So who are you?” Whirlwind asked.
“I’m…Iron Man,” replied Obadiah from inside the suit.
“That’s not entirely true,” The Mad Thinker interrupted. “There is no iron in your suit, looks to be a yakadium-vibranium blend which is a remarkable achievement.”
“So the top of the tower is inaccessible by flight or teleportation,” Mordo rubbed his moustache. “Seems that we’ll have to…”
Awesome Andy pointed to a trio of costumed people coming towards them.
“Holy crap!” Sandman said to Rhino who was carrying a man in medieval armour in his arms whilst leading a mechanical horse. “That’s Whirlwind! He’s the reason I got locked up.”
“Then don’t do anything stupid.” Rhino shrugged. “Hi! We’re from the Spectacular Six. We need some help. The Black Knight got bitten by one of those dogs as we were coming here.”
“They’re everywhere,” Sandman added.
“Tis but a scratch,” moaned the Knight his skin a ghostly white and covered in sweat.
“Heads up!” yelled Whirlwind as he shot a funnel of air past the trio into a pair of advancing wolves.
“Watch it!” snapped Sandman making his fist into mallet.
Mordo looked at the Black Knight. “He’s fighting off the infection but…”
There was a howl as the man known as the Black Knight violently transformed into a werewolf. He lashed out catching Rhino under the chin, sparks flying off the near impervious hide. Rhino threw the man into the air in shock and surprise. Iron Man tackled him and pinned him to the ground as the Black Knight’s steed reared and whinnied. As if drawn by the noise dozens more werepeople charged towards them.
“Anyone got any sort of plan?” asked Whirlwind who paused as he looked up. “And is that a wolf?”
Charging across space towards the hole in the sky above the skyscraper was a celestial wolf.
“I need to get to the roof,” Mordo said. “Thinker, see if you can make your vaccine. Take Iron Man. Rhino, you and Andy are coming with me into the building.”
“And what about me?” Sandman grunted.
“And me!” Whirlwind piped up.
“Contain the wolves!” Mordo said as he raced into the Empire State flanked by Awesome Andy and Rhino. The Mad Thinker stood next to Iron Man and the pair vanished in a haze of blue pixels leaving Sandman and Whirlwind on the street surrounded by an ever growing number of lycanthropes.
“I’d rather fight Spider-Man,” mumbled Whirlwind.
__
“Where are we?” asked Iron Man as he and the Mad Thinker materialised in a lab.
“I believe this is OsCorp,” Thinker said as he placed the blood sample under a microscope. “Now shall I call you Iron Man or would you prefer Obadiah.”
“I…not…um,” The billionaire inside the suit was flustered.
“Your secret is safe with me,” Thinker replied. “It was the welds of your armour that gave you away, to a lay person your identity is completely safe.”
{Obadiah, there is a…}
“Not now J.A.R.V.I.S!” Obadiah hissed at his sentient valet. “Iron Man is fine. How can I help?”
__
Mordo rode on the shoulders of Awesome Andy as he and the Rhino rappelled up the escalator shaft like oversized chimps.
“I’ve never met anyone with a pet dragon before,” Rhino said making small talk. “So you’re a super hero?”
Mordo nodded politely. “Concerned citizen. Now once we reach the roof you will possible see things that no man should see. I apologise but I did choose you mainly for your invulnerable hide and great strength.”
“Who’s hiding?” Rhino asked.
__
“Stop blowing me!” yelled Sandman as he tried to hold himself together as Whirlwind made a barrier around them.
“That’s the first time EVER, a guy has ever said that in the history of the world!” Whirlwind laughed.
Sandman scowled and smacked a wolf creature in the face with his sand spatula hand who’d been spun inside the tunnel of wind. “Just…watch it!”
“Do I know you?”
“NO!” Sandman protested. “I mean, no. On your left!”
__
“Seems like we’ve been here too long,” Iron Man looking around the lab.
“One hour, forty-six minutes exactly,” Thinker replied. “I think this might do but I’ll need a test subject to verify my concoction.”
“Leave that to me,” Iron Man replied as he flew out the window with a crash. The Mad Thinker shook his large head when he spotted a camera in the corner watching their every move.
__
“Where is everyone?” Sandman asked hosing back a group of wolves with a sandblast. “And where do all these wolf things keep coming from?”
“Maybe I could close the sky hole,” Whirlwind thought out loud looking up at the weird anomaly above them.
“That baldy guy said for us to contain the wolves!”
“That up there! Looks like a wolf!” Whirlwind snapped as he took to the air. “Build a castle or something!”
“Jerk!” yelled Sandman as he found himself surrounded by a snarling wall of windswept wolf people.
__
Baron Mordo, Awesome Andy and Rhino burst onto the roof to see Jericho Drumm calling down the wolf from the sky as blood energy flowed out of the Bowl of Asana.
“You’re too late Baron,” Jericho cackled. “The wolf, she comes!”
“To what end Jericho?” Mordo asked.
“We’re not friends, Baron!” Jericho chastised. “You may call me Brother Voodoo!”
“Real names have power,” Mordo said. “Now shut down your…”
“I got this!” Rhino said as he charged headlong at the skinny black man wielding a stick. Brother Voodoo smiled and like a batter at the plate knocked the charging rhino off into the distance.
“NO!” yelled Mordo.
“The wolf comes Baron. She will eat you.”
“SHE WILL EAT EVERYTHING YOU STUPID LITTLE BOY!” Mordo yelled. “You are unleashing forces you barely understand!”
“Oh I understand fine Baron; it is you who lack knowledge!” Jericho laughed as Daniel Drumm phased through Mordo causing him to collapse.
“Remember me, you murdering bastard?” Daniel hissed as he floated out of Mordo’s chest like steam off soup.
“I hoped that you would’ve found peace in the next life Daniel,” Mordo gasped. “Andy. Crush the bowl.”
The Awesome Android nodded its bulbous head and stormed forward.
__
“SOMEBODY HELP ME!” yelled Rhino as he plummeted down to the ground. Whirlwind who was on his way up didn’t have a chance to move nor activate an air cushion and was collected by the grey behemoth; the pair rocketing towards the ground. “WAKE UP WHIRLY! OH GEEZ!”
Sandman looked up to see them coming down. Flint was having trouble keeping himself together after the hours of fighting, he couldn’t think of a suitable shape to prevent their fall and keep the ever-growing sea of lycanthropes. Suddenly there was a blur and dozens of wolves were laid out, unconscious.
“Huh?”
“Allow me,” came a commanding voice. Sandman saw a man in purple and red costume, stylised helmet, with his cape billowing behind him as he raised a hand and knitted several street signs together through sheer force of will, making a slide for Rhino and Whirlwind to slide down to safety.
“My name is Magneto.” He said with authority. “Buzzing about somewhere is my son Quicksilver. We are The Brotherhood of Mutants.”
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” gushed Rhino as he got off the slide. “I thought I was going to go splat.”
Quicksilver skidded to a halt. “Thatsallofthem.”
“Slow. Down.” Magneto said with a tone that indicated to Sandman that the pair were related. “You’re bleeding Pietro.”
“Oh that’s not good!” said Sandman.
__
“Eureka!” Thinker said as the werewoman turned back into just a woman, terrified and completely confused.
“I think I ate someone,” she mumbled. “But, but I’m a vegan!”
“We’ll arrange some help,” Iron Man said softly. “You’re safe now.”
“Let us get this back to ground zero,” Thinker told Iron Man. “I believe if I jury-rig this to your shoulder cannon we will have a ballistic way of delivering the vaccine to a large amount of people.”
And with that they faded out in a haze of blue pixels.
__
Awesome Andy rained blow after blow down on Jericho who raised his hands stopping each attack with his houngan magicks. Mordo wrestled with the ghost of Daniel Drumm as the space wolf got ever closer.
__
Magneto tried to cage his son but the mutant speedster who was now a Mach 10 wolfman wasn’t allowing that to happen. He raced down the street and into the city biting and clawing all he passed.
“What happened to my son?!?” he yelled at Sandman.
“That’s what we’ve been fighting all evening,” Flint replied. “Now Speedy’s going to infect the whole damn city! Where the hell is everyone?”
The Mad Thinker and Iron Man appeared near the group.
“I have a vaccine,” Thinker said. “But apparently you’ve solved the problem with brute force.”
{Obadiah, I believe that man in the cape, is Mr Lensherr}
“Thank you J.A.R.V.I.S. Please make a note that if we survive this I’m going to donate some money to whatever he wants.”
__
“Your silly robot can’t beat me Baron!” Jericho laughed as he bound the Awesome Android in the Coils of the Loa-Snake. “The Bowl remains intact and the wolf she will be here shortly!”
“Over your brother’s dead body!” Mordo snarled as he fired the Icy Talons of Ikthalon into Daniel which momentarily made him corporeal again due to the extreme cold. Jericho looked at the frozen form of his brother as Baron Mordo conjured the Flaming Fist of Faltroth. “I will shatter him from here to eternity if you do not stop!”
“RELEASE MY BROTHER!” Jericho yelled as he fired a wave of voudon crows at the Sorcerer Supreme. Baron Mordo took the hits from the vorpal birds and smashed his hand into Daniel Drumm exploding him like a dropped glass coffee table. Jericho leapt onto Mordo and began beating him. Though skilled in martial arts he was no match for the ferocity of the rage attack.
__
“You track down Quicksilver,” said The Mad Thinker as he made the final adjustments on the cannon. “You’re the fastest of us…”
“Hey I’m the fa..whoa!” Whirlwind wobbled and sat down.
“And also you have a concussion.” Thinker added. “Stop him, we’ll stop the spread. Now Magneto…”
“I enjoy your show,” The Master of magnetism said matter of factly.
“Then you will enjoy this experiment of mine. You are going to hurl the Empire State Building into the hole creating a plug which if my calculations on paranormal variables and astrophysics should…”
“Spare me the lecture,” Magneto said as he waved his hands. “And allow me to impress you.”
“Is he going to do what I think he’s going to do?” Rhino muttered into Sandman’s ear.
“I have no idea but something tells me it’s going to get messy!”
The Empire State Building creaked and groaned as Magneto lifted the 365,000 tonne building up by the 730 tonnes of metal inside it.
__
Mordo jammed his thumbs into Jericho’s eyes as the whole building shuddered. The pair rolled off each other and up to their feet. Mordo looked over the side to see the building was rising up towards the portal.
“Seems your plan is going to fail,” Mordo said.
“I will see you rot in hell for killing my brother a second time!” rasped Brother Voodoo.
“I may well go to hell for what I did to your brother, but compared to the horror you have tried to unleash on this dimension, I feel it will be a small price,” Mordo motioned his hands.
“Your spell failed!” Jericho laughed.
“No, it was aimed at someone else.”
Awesome Andy stepped past Jericho Drumm and with a giant grey fist smashed the Bowl of Asana. The energy fizzled away and the portal began to shrink as a thunderous wolf howl echoed across the city. The wolf lunged and a paw made it through so the giant deity began to dig into this dimension.
“I think not my lupine friend!” Mordo opened his hands and called forth a powerful Norse spell of lightning that charged the entire building, and like an electric dagger plunged into the wolf’s paw causing it to shrink back as the portal closed and the sky returned to relatively normal.
__
“I think you may put it down,” Thinker suggested to Magneto as blood trickled from his ears to keep the super structure aloft. “You’ve done beyond all expectations.”
“HOLY $#!! THAT WAS AMAZING!” yelled Whirlwind as the building crunched down.
All around the werepeople began returning to their normal states. Everyone was confused, sore and disorientated from the chaos.
“Seriously, where the hell were the rest of the Six?” asked Sandman.
“He’s really fast,” Iron man said as he descended on the group holding Quicksilver. “If it wasn’t for the terrible state of the roads in New York he’d of hit Florida.”
Magneto took his son, bowed slightly and ascended up to the heavens just as quickly as he’d appeared. The Mad Thinker placed a device on the side of the Empire State.
“What’s that?” Sandman asked.
“It will prevent the building from toppling until I can return with the tools to repair it,” Thinker said. “Now excuse me, I must find my friend Andy and get young Whirlwind to a hospital.” And he vanished in a blue pixelated haze.
“As per usual, the government show up late,” Iron Man said pointing to several HYDRA gunchoppers heading their way. “I believe this is where the Spectacular Six step in.”
Iron Man took off leaving Rhino and Sandman amongst hundreds of confused citizens as several agents abseiled out of a helicopter.
“Nobody move!” yelled the lead agent, his face looking like a cats scratching post.
“Settle down Jigsaw-face!” Sandman snapped. “The Spectacular Six has this all under control!”
__
Epilogue 1
Baron Mordo sat at his kitchen table looking at the Daily Bugle. “Rabid Dogs Attack City!” was the headline. He rolled his eyes and again considered resurrecting J Jonah Jameson to give the paper back some integrity. He poured his orange juice and decided that today he was going to nothing but enjoy being alive.
Epilogue 2
Warden Emilio Layton looked at the sedated man strapped to the gurney as his assistant Kelsey Grunewald read the processing sheet.
“Drumm, Jericho. Constant sedation due to episodic seizures and delusions.”
“Off to the Mannequin Room with the others,” Emilio said.
Epilogue 3
Norman Osborn sat watching the security footage of the pixelated man and Iron Man working in his lab.
“I’ll find out who you both are,” he muttered. “Mark my words.”
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