21

Ironheart takes to the sky. She-Vulture spreads her wings, and chases her.

Up here, they dogfight. Inside the Ironheart armor, Riri commands FRIDAY to play her AC/DC playlist, an import from the future-the one Tony Stark, her mentor, always used to listen to while working.

The fight in the upper reaches of the sky. Below, the forest is barely decipherable through what few clouds are ever up here.

She-Vulture unleashes every round she's got. Ironheart deploys flares, does combat maneuvers, and dodges her first barrage of fire.

"Nerdy coward," She-Vulture grumbles. "And to think we support her kin's black supremacy movements!"

Back on the ground, Huntress empties her repeating rifle at Jemma Simmons/Deathlok. She deflects every bullet. Deathlok grins, turns her prosthetic arm into a rotary cannon, and empties it at Huntress. Somehow, she deflects every round.

Huntress sighs, and slides a bayonet onto the end of her repeater. Deathlok turns her arm into a crab claw-shaped sword. Huntress shouts, and charges her. Like a champ, Deathlok defends herself.

From the woods, the berserkers watch. They're ready to capture Huntress-regardless of whether she wins or loses.

Scarlet Witch levitates herself over the lake, undoes her spell, falls, and splashes down in the lake's depths. Via the xylem in the trees, and the water deep beneath the soil, Elektra uses both as conductors, and as highways into the lake. Once in the lake, all she's got to do is find Scarlet Witch. Once she has, she reassembles herself into a human, draws her sais, and charges Scarlet Witch.

The fight happens in slow-motion. Scarlet Witch creates a force-field around herself. Elektra gathers electricity from above the surface, and hits the force field with every electric blast she's got. The force field holds firm.

Maria Hill's still in the clearing. Sandgirl's got her cornered.

Sandgirl grins, summons many grains of sand, and assembles them into dual spears. Hill draws her revolver...and wishes she had two.

Sandgirl chuckles. "Well, Former Agent Hill," she twirls the spears, gathers more sand, and makes both bigger, "it seems the sands of your time have trickled their last."

Hill closes her eyes, and puts her hands up. "Wait!"

Sandgirl stops. To each side, her spears drip sand, and become thinner.

"Compared to your other partners," Hill praises her, "you haven't been as involved in their plot as them. If you approach me right, maybe I can help you make a deal with SHIELD."

Sandgirl hesitates.

"Please," Hill begs. "I don't think you're as bad as they are."

She still hesitates. But she releases her spears; they disintegrate when they hit the ground. Hill holsters her revolver. Side-by-side, they take a walk through the woods.

"I"m all ears," Sandgirl says. "Fill them like post holes, lest my sand does."

Through the Utah Arches, Spider-Man swings. For some reason, it feels GREAT to be normal-sized again...even if he is just a teenage nerd.

Dr. Octopussy swings from her prosthetic tentacles, and chases after him. She will stop at nothing to avenge herself and Mystria...for lack of the Reality Stone, or anything else with which she or the surviving Six could use to realize their ex-husbands' vision.

Spider-Man's always dreamed of swinging through the Arches-preferably from their highest points. And now he gets to do it while fighting one of the most formidable villainesses of his career.

"You were close, Spider-Man," she shouts, "but no ink! You'll be like a worm in my tentacles in no time!"

O, how Peter would love to still be like a mite in Liz's navel... But now's not the time for that; Dr. Octopussy isn't stopping herself.