"If you wanna be somebody else, if you're tired of losing battles with yourself, If you wanna be somebody else, change your miii-iiind!"

Johnny Domingo had been driving with Rachel Leighton for almost 12 hours between his native San Francisco and his new home in Phoenix, and in that time he had come to one unavoidable conclusion:

Rachel was the former villain-cum-heroine named Diamondback, and she had been romantically entangled with Cap awhile back. Johnny didn't know all the details, but something had happened between them and the Sentinel of Liberty didn't want anything to do with her anymore, even though she'd been carrying a torch for the man as long as Johnny had known her.

Johnny had accompanied her back to San Fran to deal with a ghost problem she was having,* and something about that experience had changed her. He didn't see the sadness just below the surface of whatever mood she was wearing anymore, didn't catch her gazing longingly off into the middle distance when she thought no one was looking.

No, instead she had preempted his jazz station for this annoyingly peppy pop CD that she'd been singing along with for the last 60 miles.

But looking at her, arms flung up in the air while she sang, torso twisting in a little dance, he didn't mind the music at all.

"Almost there," he cut in when the song was over. "Another 5 minutes and we can get off the freeway."

"Maybe we should have called ahead to let someone know we'd be coming back." She dropped her arms and tilted her head back so her hair could blow backwards in the convertible's wake. "What if nobody's home?"

"Ah, wouldn't have made any difference. Even if they'd known we were coming in, they might still have to go fight some bad guy. From what I've seen of this team, I think it's a rule that trouble always manages to find them at the most inconvenient times..."

Georges Batroc shook his head to clear it, squinting as the world came slowly back into focus. He was in... the basement lab, he decided. The basement of his home, the Champions' headquarters. The metal and glass of the team's lab equipment -- picked out by Scott Lang and appropriated by Barry when Scott had gone over to "the dark side" -- glinted in the half-light. Beyond them, a figure stepped out into the uncertain light.

The man was tall, broad of shoulder and square of jaw. He was wearing a red and white costume slightly reminiscent of Captain America's -- right down to the ridiculous boots -- though instead of wings, this man had a small fin atop his head. Across his chest was a crossed sickle and hammer.

Batroc realized with a start that he was tied to a chair. Zut alors, how had that escaped his notice?

"I?" the man in the red costume asked. "I am a dead man. I am every moment of heartbreak the traitorous Black Widow ever experienced. I am the personification of a dead ideal." He approached the Leaper and grasped the arms of the chair he was roped to. "And I am the man who holds your life in his hands."

"Do you do a lot of sweeming? Eez zat what eet's for? And zose boots..." Batroc clucked his tongue chidingly.

The man seized the arms of the chair again and darted down until he was nose-to-nose with his prisoner. "You have a lot of nerve, friend, to critique my costume while parading around wearing that hideous mustache!"

Batroc gasped. "How dare you! Release me zis instant, and I weel teach you to respect ze whiskers of Batroc!"

The man seemed like he was about to do just that... but then he chuckled and straightened again. "Very nice, Georges. You almost had me. No... I think I will keep you in that chair for just a little longer. At least until your teammates return."

The man put his hands behind his back and took a couple of steps away. "Would you like to know why you and your friends are going to die, Batroc?"

"No. It weel simply bore me, and eef I know your story, I may sympathize with you and hezitate to kick your butt when at last I am free of zese bonds."

The man chuckled without turning. "You amuse me, Batroc. Still... we have nothing but time while we await the return of your comrades, and I want at least one of you to understand why I do this before I destroy you. So I will tell you."

Batroc, who had been tugging unabashedly at his bonds, sighed and rolled his eyes. "Mon dieu..."

The office was absolutely frigid, and Nikolai Stalyenko, barely 20 years old, reigned in his urge to shiver as the officer behind the desk looked him over with eyes the color of steel.

The officer rose and circled his desk until he was standing right in front of the young pilot. <"You will listen to me very carefully, Lieutenant Stalyenko. I am about to tell you a story, and this story will become your truth, no matter who asks you. Do you understand?">

<"You were flying the new MIG fightercraft today. Your wingman, Shostakov, was brought down by a guidance system failure.">

Despite himself, Stalyenko lost bearing and his eyes followed the colonel. <"Sir? Shostakov and I both returned fine from our mission over--">

<"No, you did not,"> the colonel barked, turning those steel eyes on the lieutenant. <"That may have been the truth an hour ago, but it is no longer so. Do you understand me, lieutenant.">

It was not a question. Still confused, Stalyenko regained his bearing and set his eyes to the front again.

<"His widow is being informed as we speak. Shostakov will, of course, be rewarded posthumously. You were close to Shostakov and his woman, yes?">

<"Then it will be up to you to comfort his widow, yes? And your duty to deflect any questions she may have over her husband's 'death'.">
Stalyenko allowed himself a nod. <"I understand, sir.">

The Colonel had returned to his desk. <"We all will greatly miss lieutenant Shostakov. Your diligence and continued loyalty in this trying time will be rewarded.

"What I didn't know at the time, what I only managed to find out days later, was that Alexi Shostakov had faked his death in order to enter training to become the Red Guardian. The Guardian, patterned after your Captain America, had to be a symbol, you see. Someone with no other identity to retreat into nor any other family to owe allegiance to.

"Shostakov was my wingman, my best friend. I would have given my life for him, but he never once hinted what he was up to with the Red Guardian project. Never gave me any indication that he was leaving, that I would never see him again." The Guardian brought his fist down on one of the lab tables, cracking it down the center. Is that the action of a friend, Frenchman?"

He had been hoping the comment would dig at his captor, but the Red Guardian simply straightened and nodded. "Exactly what I believed. Which is why I never overly concerned myself with the ethics of my advancement on his estranged wife.

"Even when we first met, when I would have rather ripped out my own eyes than betray Alexi in any way, I found myself drawn to his new bride. She was... the most lovely creature I had ever seen. A prima ballerina with the face and body of a goddess, and a heart that was all too vulnerable after she received the news of her husband's death.

The young lieutenant took the narrow pass between the wall and the stairs, and then turned right into the high-ceilinged dining room. She was there, as he'd suspected, a half-empty bottle of vodka balanced precariously on the edge of the dining table, just within her reach, her forehead down on the ceramic tabletop.

He approached, moving the bottle toward the center of the table, then knelt down at her side. <"Natalia? I am so sorry, Natalia. It happened before I could do anything, before Alexi could even eject.">

She looked up at him, bleary-eyed, and the smell of the liquor hit him like a physical blow. He glanced at the half-empty bottle and wondered off-handedly if it was her first.

"Nikolai?" she asked, as if her eyes hadn't completely focused yet. <"Alexi is... they've just been to tell me...">

<"I loved him so much!"> She fell into his arms then, and he held her tight, running his hands over her smooth, hard back, breathing deep of her hair. <"They said it was a malfunction... a malfunction! How could he die for something so stupid?">

<"If I could take this pain from you, sweet Natalia, I would."> He pushed her away, gently but firmly, and took her face in his hands.

<"Dear Nikolai,"> she said putting her own hand over his, and there was a gratitude in her eyes that Stalyenko, in his eagerness and anger, mistook for something else. She closed her eyes to let another tear slip loose, and when she did he moved forward and put his lips to hers.

Natalia's eyes came open and, after a heartbeat of uncertainty, she shoved him away. He went sprawling onto his backside on the kitchen floor, looking up at his goddess with stunned hurt.

<Of course not!> the young man wanted to scream. <He's not in his grave yet because he's still alive, and he left you, and they will tell you that the explosion incinerated his remains, but the truth is he chose to do this to you! To us!>

Stalyenko got up, dusting his backside off and reaching for the hat he'd left on the table. <"My apologies, Natalia. I--">

He looked at her awkwardly for another moment, then, nodding, he set his cap firmly on his head, and walked out the door.

"But I couldn't just leave her be. I suppose I held out some hope that the traitorous wench would allow me to court her once Alexi's 'remains' had been laid to rest, but she wanted nothing more to do with me. I attended her performances, stood outside her home on rainy nights. I couldn't get her out of my mind. She had succeeded in casting her spell. I was utterly bewitched.

"After a suitable period of mourning, my uncle, a high-placed government man who had also been the source of my information on what really happened to Alexi, approached me concerning Natalia. He asked me how I felt she might perform serving the state's intelligence needs. Apparently certain aptitude tests she'd taken years ago had marked her as a prime candidate for fieldwork. Alexi's faked 'death' had actually been a two-pronged strategy, turning Alexi into a symbol and making his wife amenable to the idea of entering training as a spy.

"I told my uncle to take her. I could not have her, and as a government agent she would at the very least be out of my sight. I thought that, perhaps, if I could not follow her, I would eventually lose interest in her.

"Years passed. Natalia excelled as a spy, and then she defected. My uncle was in a rage. There was some talk about training another codename Black Widow, but my uncle would have none of it. No other daughter of Russia would have to bear the title of that traitorous cow.

The aged man behind the desk smiled. <"My sister's son... part of me wonders if we may have avoided all of this if the Red Room had selected you as the Red Guardian in the first place.">

Nikolai Stalyenko did not reply. He agreed with his uncle's sentiment, but he would never be so bold as to say so.

<"You will need training. And then your sole duty -- more important than that pretty fool we have publicly strutting around with the Soviet Super Soldiers -- will be to destroy the traitor Natalia Romanova. She will serve as an example to all others who think we are weak. You will be our fist, nephew, reaching across oceans to crush those who would betray us.">

<"Then we will discuss your continued role with the Red Room. But worry about the task at hand first, Nikolai.">

<"There's no need to worry, uncle. It's already as good as done."> He smiled. <"I have just one request, a little something to make my job easier.">

The Guardian pushed his red mask back over his head and turned back toward his prisoner. "Alexi Shostakov was my best friend. I knew him like I knew myself. Once the Red Room's surgeons gave me his face, it was child's play to become him in every way that was important, further confusing the Black Widow and drawing her -- eh? What are you--? Curse you, wake up!"

Batroc started awake, a thin line of drool trailing down to his shoulder. He blinked, cleared his throat. "Quoi? Ah... pardon, mon brave. I zeem to 'ave lost track of ze story..."

Scowling, the Guardian drew the pistol from the white holster at his hip and leveled it at his prisoner. "You idiot... there really is no reason to keep you al--"

The door to the first floor suddenly exploded inward, and a furry, yapping quintet of three-headed collie puppies came pounding down the wooden stairs. The Red Guardian whirled.

The Cerberus puppies made it halfway down before they decided to forego the stairs and just burst through the wooden railing. The Guardian managed to pop off only one shot before they descended upon him. One of the puppies caught the shell in his mouth and began distractedly chewing at it as he hit the floor.

"Oui! Oui! Sic 'im, mes petites! And... uh, free me when you get ze chance..."

Four of the puppies swarmed over the Guardian, his reinforced costume the only thing protecting him from their teeth and claws. He fell back, rolling backwards over a table and trying to slide it in-between himself and the puppies.

The puppy that had stopped to chew on the shell lost interest suddenly and coughed it up. Then he padded across the cement floor to where Batroc was tied to the chair.

"Chew ze ropes," Batroc said. He hopped the chair around until the puppy could see his arms tied behind it, then began flipping the ends of the rope he was tied with.

The puppy got the hint and, thinking Batroc was playing a game with him, seized the rope in one set of jaws and began tugging and shredding it. In seconds, Batroc was free.

Rushing to another of the lab's worktables, he threw the drawer open and began tossing its contents to the floor. "Where eez it?" he hissed under his breath. The Champions had rushed off into the timestream, they needed him as never before, and he couldn't let this lovesick, adolescent clown stop him.

A bullet whined over his head and he ducked, but kept right on searching. The puppies had the Guardian cornered, but he still had his gun.

"Voila!" Batroc exclaimed, pulling a nondescript white wafer the size of a poker chip out of the drawer -- the time-chip Greg Wallander had given them when they'd been time-lost. The controls were tiny, and the Leaper didn't entirely understand them, but he manipulated them quickly with one thumbnail.

"Batroc!" the Guardian bellowed from behind him, crawling up onto the table he was trapped behind. He leapt over the snapping puppies and tackled Batroc as he was turning, the two of them going down in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.

"You will be the first to die!" the Guardian proclaimed, pounding Batroc across the jaw. "The Champions' pet Frenchman -- the team clown -- is barely worth scraping my knuckles over, but I never leave a job half-finished." He drew his pistol quickly, mindful of the puppies charging up behind him. "Say goodbye to your worthless life, you fool."

"Fool?" Batroc slapped the gun away and twisted violently, throwing the Guardian's weight off of him. He rolled and got to his feet, pointing a finger at the still-charging puppies.

Five butts went down on the concrete and fifteen sets of eyes looked expectantly at their master for the next command.

"Zis is my fight," Batroc proclaimed, and then he took a swing at the Guardian. The man ducked under it and drove a fist into Batroc's kidney. The leaper fell back and the Guardian followed him.

"Your fight?" the Guardian laughed. "You just threw away your only chance. Alone, you can never hope to stand up to the personification of the spirit of the Russian people."

"You?" Batroc gasped, still stumbling toward the wall. "Ze only thing you could possibly be ze perzonification of is a jackazz! You are not worthy to call yourzelf ze Red Guardian. You are not even worthy to lick ze Black Widow's bootz, much less to covet her like a retarded schoolboy."

The Guardian's face darkened, and he reached for the retreating Leaper. "You are dead, little man."

Batroc stumbled once more, still holding his side... then he suddenly straightened, leapt up toward the wall with one foot, and launched himself back at the Guardian. "I am Batroc ze Leapair, you buffoonish anachronizm!"

"Not... leaving..." the Guardian wheezed, and grabbed at Batroc's ankle. At the movement, the puppies forgot their orders and lunged for him.

There was a flash of light and a very loud FWASH, and all of them were sucked into the timestream.

A heartbeat later, two pairs of footsteps sounded from upstairs, and Rachel Leighton and Johnny Domingo appeared in the doorway. Silently, the two of them surveyed the wreckage of the basement lab and, after a while, Rachel looked at Johnny.

The platform Greg Wallander had created to carry the Champions shattered at Loki's first attack, pitching all but Firebird into the flooded New York Harbor.

"I'mfinecatchIceman!" the Flash yelled as he plummeted toward the water. His legs pumped at super-speed, creating a cushion of air between him and the water. "Iceman!" he repeated when he saw the blank look on Firebird's face.

Bonita's head swiveled toward the others. Barry was right, of course. Ant-Girl was already shrinking herself and her boyfriend Greg Wallander to ant size. Hercules, Cerberus, and the futuristic robot H.E.R.C. 2000 could all survive a hundred-foot fall into the harbor. Iceman -- or the Latino kid who had adopted that name ten years in Bonita's future -- had no way to save himself.

"Thanks, senorita," he said, giving her a thumbs-up and pushing his sunglasses farther up on his nose. "Now how about dropping me off in Brooklyn?"

Bonita didn't reply. Below her, the three most resilient Champions hit the expanded water of New York Harbor and were instantly submerged.

"Flee now fools," Loki cried from his position on the surface of the Harbor. Somehow he had grown to nearly 80 feet tall, and he was waving the corpse of a raven-haired woman in one Buick-sized hand. "Flee and I may let you live! I can be a beneficent god, now that none are left to oppose me!"

"Dude's got some issues," Iceman observed. "And who's that dead chick he's waving around?"

Below them, Barry reached the water and abruptly changed direction, zipping across the face of the sea toward the feet of the giant.

And that's when Bonita realized Loki wasn't actually standing on the water. He stood astride a small artificial island, a tract of Astroturf and flotation devices that was broken and wrecked and looked just about ready to fall beneath the waves.

"Looks that way," a voice next to her ear said, and she realized without looking that it was Ant-Girl, shrunken down and riding on the back of some insect. "Apparently they had one in this reality too."*

(* Indeed they did. See the Heroes Reborn run of Avengers for the sad fate of the Franklinverse's version of Hydrobase -- Russ)

"She is the empress of this reality, a Celestial who gave up her godhood to lead an artificial life among artificial beings. And now... her power is mi-- eh?"

The dead woman had vanished from Loki's hand, and he looked down at it in puzzlement for a moment before his confused expression was replaced with a scowl. "Thinkest thou art the fastest man alive, mortal? Race with a god!"

Crimson power flew from Loki's eyes, punching steaming holes in the water as a red blur that had to be the Flash zipped around them. He managed to stay one step ahead of them... barely.

Nodding, she dove low and, once she'd fallen within a few feet of the water, dropped him. Then she swooped up, her flame-shaped cape flaring out like wings behind her as she brought her power to bear.

A ball of flame the size of a city bus roared from her extended hands and charged through the air towards the mad god. Loki took it facefirst...

Hercules and H.E.R.C. 2000 had managed to climb up onto the remains of Hydrobase while Loki was distracted, and now the god and the robot brought their fists down with a double impact that could have shattered mountains. It was more than sufficient to crack Hydrobase into hundreds of thousands of pieces, and all of it, including the Champions themselves, fell into the water.

"Enough," the god growled in a voice like thunder. His glowing eyes turned to the sky, and he seemed to lose interest in the Champions. "E'er since mine brother thought me killed,* I hath rested... hoarded my power for this day. And now... now this entire make-believe world stands ripe for my plucking."

(* See Marvel's Avengers vol. 2 #11... hey, it was Walt Simonson, that makes it a good Heroes Reborn book, right? -- Russ)

The giant's eyes darkened. "But there remains one further danger to my rule. And these self-styled 'heroes' are not it."

Loki raised a hand, palm-up -- the same hand that had been holding the dead woman until the Flash had snatched her away. A thin mist swirled into being around it and, as the mist marched down Loki's arm and eventually over his body, he seemed to shimmer behind it, to grow hazy around the edges until, with a massive BOOM of imploding air, he was gone.

"Oh that's great!" Iceman cried, slapping the water. Cerberus had picked him up and he was now riding on the demon dog's back. "What the hell do we do now?"

Beside him, Greg Wallander and Ant-Girl grew to full height and splashed down into the water, the insect they'd been riding on wheeling away.

"Danger to his rule, huh?" Ant-Girl said. "Think we know who he could be talking about?"

The Flash zoomed by, reducing his speed and dropping into the water next to the others. He was carrying the dead woman. "What are you two talking about?"

"And he's left a trail I can follow," Greg said, weaving at the air with both arms while trying to simultaneously keep his head above water. "Couldn't find Limbo on my own, but we can hitch a ride on his wake."

"Then let us be gone, friend Greg. the sons of Zeus would have words with Aeon and Loki both."

Greg nodded, and with a flash of emerald light and the slap of imploding water, the Champions followed Loki into Limbo.

"Can she hear us?" the Black Widow asked, one hand on the smooth crystal face of the prison. Inside the emerald oval, which was in turn embedded in the red crystal wall of Aeon's citadel, was a woman made entirely of a silvery liquid. Her name was Plasma, and she claimed to be a herald of the world-devourer Galactus. The Widow had since discovered that her claim was true, though she had apparently served a Galactus in a reality different from the Widow's own.

Beside her, young Cassie Lang looked wonderingly on the liquid woman. Wedged beneath her arm was the stylized silver helmet her father had once worn as the hero Ant Man.

"No, the gem keeps her suspended so she can't cause any trouble. I'll have to return her to her reality soon, of course. I can't wipe her mind of what she knows, unfortunately -- my power doesn't extend much beyond imprisonment when your talking about Galactic heralds -- but she'll be returned too late to do anything about it."

'It' was Aeon's planned destruction of Plasma's entire universe, an artificial construct whose present anchor-less existence threatened other realities as well. Natasha turned and looked at the man who had been her teammate not that long ago. "Scott, why are you telling us this?"

He smiled sadly. With his hood down like this, she could almost believe he still was Scott... but the scarlet tint of his eyes quickly put the lie to that delusion. "I want you and the others to know that my becoming Aeon... it was a good thing. Not easy, maybe... definitely not without its moral compromises, but necessary and good. I particularly want you to understand Natasha. You--"

Something hit the crystal citadel... hard. Cassie and Natasha were thrown from their feet, but Aeon kept his footing, and whirled around.

"Merciful Infinites," he breathed, his voice returning to the eerie, fluid tone of Aeon. "Not here... not already!"

The citadel shook again, and this time the Widow was thrown so hard her teeth clacked together on her tongue. She felt warm blood fill her mouth.

Aeon was running down the red crystal corridor, his red robes flaring out behind him.

Behind her, Cassie Lang rubbed the crown of her head and, putting her weight on her father's helmet, slowly got to her feet. She saw Natasha disappear around a distant corner, and was about to follow her when she heard a voice at her back.

She turned, puzzled. Plasma still slept in her prison, and other than that, she seemed to be alone. She moved hesitantly in the direction the sound had come from -- opposite from the direction the Widow and her father had gone. She passed Plasma's prison, and again heard it.

She didn't know the voice, but it was deep, and neat to listen to... kind of like James Earl Jones.

A little further down the corridor she found another emerald oval stuck in the red wall, and as she slowly moved to face it, she saw there was somebody in there. A tall, broad-shouldered black man, with dreadlocks cascading over his shoulder and halfway down his back, and a pair of Ray-Bans over his face. When she'd stopped, the man gave her the biggest, whitest, toothiest grin she'd ever seen.

The bewildering maze of corridors seemed... different to Natasha as she followed Aeon on his mad dash, as if the citadel was reconfiguring its arteries, giving Aeon the shortest possible route to wherever it was he was headed. In less than a minute, that destination became clear as the red hallway deposited the two of them outside onto a gray plain covered with dense fog. Natasha couldn't see more than 20 feet in any direction -- the red wall at her back extended upward and to either side farther than that -- and she certainly couldn't see whatever it was Aeon was glaring at through the mist.

"He killed her," Scott said simply, "and he thinks he absorbed her power when he did so, but he didn't, not really. All he got was her knowledge, and that may very well be enough..."

Her question was answered in the next moment as a face bigger than she and Aeon put together burst through the mist above and sneered down upon them. The face was wearing a bizarre yellow headdress with two enormous horns curling out of the front.

"The universe you wish to lay waste to is my kingdom now, little timelord. And none may crush that which is Loki's to destroy in his own good time."

"Your 'kingdom' threatens to lay waste the multiverse, godling! If I don't remove it, it will eventually crumble anyway!"

"LIES!" Loki roared, his two enormous hands appearing through the mist and slamming down on either side of the pair. "Ashema is dead and now I rule, and you wish to steal this victory from me just as my cursed stepbrother might!"

The god's voice became confident again, oily. "But thou shalt not succeed. For even were my nigh-infinite power not enough to defeat one of Immortus' lackies, I hath enlisted allies. Allies who be very interested in thine citadel and its portals out of this accursed Limbo."

Loki waved an arm, and for a moment, the mist parted again. The Black Widow caught just a glimpse of a mass of red, quivering forms surrounding the Crux on the plains of Limbo. Hundreds of bodies with grotesque demeanors and dripping bodies. Natasha recognized them instantly.

BEWARE

OF

DOG

Since I'm putting the final touches on this story on February 14th, I think it only right to plug the first MV1 Valentine's Day Special, organized and edited by Sterling Sam Everett. I wrote a short Daredevil story for it, and it includes other tales by some of MV1's finest (Mark Bousquet, Mike Exner III, Bob Gansler, and Tom Lynch, to name a few).

No letters to print this month. It's been kinda quiet on the feedback front lately.

Special thanks to Derrick Ferguson, writer of Dillon and the Voice of Odin at Frontier Publications, and Justice Squadron at DC Legends (which he also serves as frontman for), for talking this series up on the Heroes list and just generally and consistently coming out in support of it. I despise the word 'fan' and the mindlessness it implies, but it sure is nice to have such faithful readers... :-)

See you next month for my last hurrah on this title.

- Russ Anderson
14 February, 2002