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Issue #2 August 2010	“Into the Void” Written By Curt Fernlund and Will Short

Previously in DEFENDERS: Dr. Strange hired Shadowoman to locate a set of ancient scrolls. Unbeknownst to them, the scrolls were used by a cult to free the Outer Gods, whose arrival sent shockwaves across all dimensions. Strange went to the Astral Plane to investigate, leaving behind his apprentice Daimon Hellstrom. The Outer Gods enlisted the aid of the Dweller-in-Darkness and the Fear-Eater Kkallakku, sending the latter to possess Strange’s uninhabited body. Meanwhile, Valkyrie defied Odin by leaving Asgard to help Earth, and the Silver Surfer had a vision of a robed woman crying out in pain...

Space

As frenzied as Lord Chaos—as alien as the Celestials—yet older than Galactus himself...

This from the mere ripples sent out by the corrupting power that surged through a pinhole in existence. The Silver Surfer shivered. He could practically feel the infection creep over his metallic shell.

Off in the far distance, the faint blue outline of a male face traced itself around the stars and planets. “Norinn Radd,” it said through a pained grimace. Unease hid somewhere deep within the unmistakable monotone voice of Eternity.

The Surfer willed his board to halt. “Eternity,” he said. “What is this force that infests reality? First it stirred the Power Cosmic within me, and just now—”

“They are called the Outer Gods. They burrow through the very fabric of my being.”

“Outer Gods?”

“Seek them on Earth... else their infection should spread through all of existence!”

“And the woman I saw. What of her?”

“Earth, Norinn Radd!” Eternity repeated. He gritted his teeth and moaned. Then his face faded into the blackness of space.

Earth. It was always Earth. And Earth was always galaxies away...

The Silver Surfer leaned low to his board and sped off into hyperspace.

INTERLUDE 1

N’Gabthoth the Shambler slept in an oozing womb of murk. Something dwelled out of sight in the darkness. It spoke...

“Ripple in the blackest depths.” N’Gabthoth didn’t hear these words so much as they were inserted directly into him. “The time has come... the time to rise!”

From the darkness came blue-black tentacles. They mingled with N’Gabthoth’s own. As he surrendered to the flow, his single eye widened, dilating fully to allow it to take in the immensity of the chaos that crawled behind the Dweller.

“Remember now the nightmare beyond your dreams!” said the Dweller-in-Darkness. “The Outer Gods are returning!”

The chaos wailed at N’Gabthoth. “WAKE, LITTLE SHAMBLER! THROW OPEN THE GATEWAY BETWEEN DIMENSIONS—THE NEXUS OF ALL REALITIES!”

END INTERLUDE 1

The Astral Plane

“Be gone!” Dr. Strange cried. The Eye of Agamotto blazed a path through the things feeding on the shifting, vaporous thought-forms that made up the Astral Plane’s boundaries.

They were something like larvae, at least as Strange perceived them—the grey-pink masses of their bodies writhing and bloating, glistening with an greenish translucent royal jelly; eyeless, faceless; rows of mandibles lining the gaping maws that clicked and smacked while they gorged themselves. They let out shrieks as the Eye incinerated them.

The slick flesh of the remaining larvae was rended from within. Vein-webbed wings tore through, and as they began to beat, things armored in black serrated bone lifted out, whirring as they chewed through their fleshy cocoons and droned toward Strange’s astral form.

Strange whipped his head back and forth. He cried out wordlessly as a drone shot up behind him, the tube-like protuberance at its mouth licking his soul, tasting his very essence. The light from the Eye of Agamotto sent it and the others plummeting in flames. From the ashes, plagues of black scarabs skittered over Strange’s astral form with their millions of tiny legs, trailing ooze behind them as they scurried off into the void.

“You can’t hide,” Strange called out. “Not from me. You do know that, don’t you?”

Barriers of illusion were built up as fast as the Eye of Agamotto could knock them down. The sprawling crimson plasma-mass of the quiver-wraith poured in from nowhere, its gelatinous plasma almost drowning Strange.

“Stop this!” Strange bellowed as he gasped for air. “Show yourself!” The quiver-wraith evaporated under the Eye’s scorching stare, leaving only an acrid scent.

The illusions continued. Further up and further out...

A lucent sac of leaking acid, two pulpy hoses on its underside dangling in oblivion as it floated; shuffling tremblers clothed in ill-fitting flesh, tiny bleeding mouths in place of their pores—all cut down by the beam of pure illumination coming from the third eye of Strange’s astral form.

“Show me the truth! Show me your face!”

White light surrounded Strange. He saw his astral form from without then, adrift in the infinite white void that was the pupil of an unblinking eye on the face of the entropy. Blood trickled from his ears as he heard the chaotic chorus, and from his three eyes as they widened to survey the endless bedlam in its entirety, which stretched to the boundaries of Infinity. Stains on Eternity itself, quickly spreading...

He was no longer on the Astral Plane but at the heart of the Outer Darkness. Oceans of black, bubbling tar pits sprawled out below him, and angular structures of black bone stabbed at the gray sky overhead—all of it simultaneously coming into existence and decaying in a state of constant flux as the entropy wailed its blasphemies.

The sight—the sound—they were more than Strange could take in, even filtered through the Eye of Agamotto. He was so insignificant—his actions so irrelevant in the face of such vastness, such power...

Stephen Strange’s mind fractured under the unbearable weight of the knowledge he had gained, then shattered.

The Realm of the Vishanti

“Aghhhhh!!!”

Agamotto howled in pain, covering his eye.

Old man Hoggoth looked up from the scrying pool. “What is it?” He pried away Agamotto’s hand and quickly recoiled. Agamotto’s pupil smoldered white, his sclera clouding with darkness.

“It—it—my eye! I can’t—aughhh!!! I can’t see!”

Oshtur’s gaze remained fixed on the pool. In it, Dr. Strange’s astral form drifted on the edge of all perceivable reality—drooling, spasming. Broken. “The barriers between dimensions are thinning,” she said.

“We must do something!” Hoggoth said over Agamotto’s bellowing.

“What can be done? With Strange’s defeat, all the failsafes he held in place are weakened or destroyed. Even now, The Forgotten gain a foothold on the Earthly Plane. I always feared this day would come...”

“What day? What are you talking about?!”

“The return of the Forgotten Ones. Those that even my siblings and I—and you, ancient Hoggoth—call elders. The primordial Demon-Gods of the Outer Dark...”

INTERLUDE 2
Citrusville, Florida

Long before her family heritage led her to the hidden weirdness of the world, Jennifer Kale spent plenty of summer evenings slogging barefoot through ankle-high swamp water in a tank top and rolled up jeans, just as she did now.

An aura of blue light solidified over Jen’s body as the phantom pain stirred within her, telling her that, somewhere here in the Nexus of All Realities, the Man-Thing too was hurting.

She heard nearby rustling, and the black cat that had been cautiously circling her ankles went rigid. Hissing, his dark shape bounded out of Jen’s eye-line and toward the commotion.

“Ebony, no!” Jen cried, sloshing after him. “Wait!”

She watched Ebony’s gait widen as he scampered, his legs sprouting new, lean muscles. His torso and head swelled till his mouth was full with fangs long as knives, and he let out a deep panther-roar as he leapt through the brush. Jen pushed aside a low hanging branch and saw Ebony wrenching back his dripping paw, struggling with a scaly length that ensnared his wrist.

“Oh my god!” Her hand lifted—trembling—and she willed a wave of blue light to strike the water around Ebony. He snapped at the tentacle that held him as it whipped back. “Get over here right now!” Ebony came to her side and spit out a chunk of twitching pulp. “Gross...”

Jen looked out over the swamp’s deep patch. The water at first seemed like one massive squirming coil, alive with tentacles that weaved above and below its murky surface until they fed into the sides of the Shambler’s head.

A nauseating knot planted itself in Jen’s gut, wet slivers of pain piercing her mind as she tried to take in the Shambler’s form. She could only manage glimpses... Suckers on the ends of its fingers; a round, pincer-jawed gash for a mouth; above that, a single glutinous eye.

Beneath the Shambler, two teardrop rubies reflected Jen’s face. She shuddered as she realized they were the Man-Thing’s pleading eyes. He laid on his perpetually hunched back, impaled on the jagged end of a tree stump, the vines and wood fibers of his body unraveling as the Shambler’s limbs violated them.

“Oh my god!” Jen said. “Ted...” She screamed as the Man-Thing’s fear—raw and searing—flared inside of her.

And then the Man-Thing burst into flame.

END INTERLUDE 2

Greenwich Village, New York
The Sanctum Sanctorum

Jill knocked on the townhouse’s front door. The thing was heavy enough to seal in a small castle. Dr. Strange’s green-robed butler—manservant, whatever he was—answered, looking very young to Jill as he smiled.

“Good evening, Ms. Woods.” Wong indicated the obsidian-bound scrolls Jill held to her chest. “It appears your errand for the Master bore fruit.”

“Yeah. Can I come in?”

“Yes, of course. Excuse my manners—things have been a bit hectic here. May I take your—”

Jill stepped into the foyer, marching past Wong up the staircase.

Wong was one step behind. “Ah, I’m afraid the Master is... otherwise occupied at the moment. If you’d like, I can bring you some refreshments while you wait in the downstairs parlor.”

“You got any liquor in this place? I mean, any that won’t turn me into a werewolf or something?”

“We have a wide selection of spirits in the parlor. Which I’d be quite happy to show you, if you’d—”

“Bring up your two best bottles of vodka. One I’m gonna drink. The other one’s going right over Strange’s goddam head, so you might wanna bring up a first aid kit, too.”

Jill looked back. Wong’s hand gripped the shoulder of her leather jacket, squeezing ever so gently.

“I know your threats are in jest,” he said. “But I took an oath to protect Dr. Strange with my very life. Please, Ms. Woods—take a moment to calm yourself.”

“I—I’m sorry.” The scrolls were heavy in Jill’s hand. “It’s just... the things I’ve seen the past couple days...”

“Let her come up, Wong.”

The thin redhead at the top of the stairs looked frustrated—almost flustered, though Jill got the feeling he’d never admit that. “Maybe Shadowoman here can help me get these damn doors open.”

“Daimon,” said Wong, “I must strongly advise against that.”

“I heard you the first time, Wong. Tell me, since when does the help refer to a guest by his first name? Steve’s been getting too lax with you.”

“Master Apprentice Hellstrom... I’m sure the Master has his reasons for sealing himself off. Venturing into the Astral Plane requires intense meditation, which itself requires deep—”

“I don’t need magic lessons from you, Wong! You and I both heard the noises coming from his room, and he hasn’t responded to a single word I’ve said! Given what Steve is off looking for, I think you’d be breaking your oath to try and stop me. For God’s sake, Wong, the Orb of Agamotto cracked when we tried to identify the damn thing!”

“You guys still spooked over those bad vibes or whatever?” Jill said.

“Yes,” said Daimon. “And with good reason.”

“Yeah, well, I’m spooked too.” Jill’s jacket became liquid shadow that swirled to cover her body. It solidified into a blue-black bodysuit and half-mask. “I’ll help. Here.” She dropped the scrolls in Wong’s arms and flew over the banister directly to the double-doors on the third floor. Daimon met her there.

“It’s sealed by the Tendrils of Ikthalon,” he said.

“The what of what?”

“The spell sealing the doors. Powerful, but sloppily cast. That’s the Darkforce you’re using, right?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Alright.” Daimon held up three fingers on each hand. White fire danced on his fingertips. “Let’s hope it plays nicely with the Talons of Cosmic Flame. Steve!” he called out. “If you can hear me, get away from the door! We’re coming in!”

White eagle-talons of fire covered Daimon’s hands, swelling to engulf the doors. Jill winced—it wasn’t physical heat, but it was still hot, no doubt. Darkforce poured from her arms and curled up the talons, darkening their sharp tips as they gripped the doors in unison with the clenching of Daimon’s fists. The doors fractured in a scorching flash—KRUNCH!

“Oh dear...” Wong said.

For Jill, the sight of such rare tomes strewn about in so slapdash a fashion was tantamount to a personal apocalypse. The towering library shelves had been mostly emptied on the floor, with Dr. Strange feverishly adding more to the pile on the other side of the room.

“Steve!” Daimon said. Strange continued rifling through the bookshelf and was carelessly tossing the volumes over his shoulder. “Steve, what the hell are you doing?!” Daimon marched over to Strange, taking firm hold of the mage’s shoulder. “Steve!”

But the thing that spun around was not Stephen Strange. It may have worn his form—twisted it, with its snout-like face and rows of long, thin teeth—but the ravenous gaze it cast over Daimon and Jill was utterly inhuman.

“Jesus...” said Jill, a thick shield of Darkforce enveloping her.

The thing that was not Dr. Strange licked its lips and grinned its pointy drool-drenched grin. “Dweller,” it hissed.

“Kkallakku,” Jill found herself saying in a voice that was not her own. She felt cold, rubbery lengths climb up her throat from the darkness within her and choke her as they erupted from her mouth.

INTERLUDE 3
New Mexico

One desert for another. That’s all Joe Fixit had traded by following the unignorable nagging sensation—this wanderlust that always focused loosely on some magical goings-on—that suddenly came over him.

Usually, when he felt this itch, scratching it meant a trip to New York and seeing Dr. Strange, whose pencil-neck Fixit had planned on snapping before he found himself in the Jornada del Muerto desert basin. Not exactly his old haunt, but a hell of a lot closer than Vegas.

Fixit leapt with his brawny legs and slammed down on an escarpment, his girth sending up clouds of sand. “Aw, dammit!” he said. He lifted his wide foot, inspecting what was left of the shoe. Berlutis in his size had to be custom made, and they didn’t come cheap.

Out past the shoe, over the embankment, something else caught Fixit’s eye. Between there and the next rolling dune was a black heap. Fixit stepped over the embankment and landed. Broken lumps of what appeared to be coal sat in piles of black powder that mixed with the sand.  It looked like the remnants of a tombstone, or a cairn that had been chiseled out of obsidian and shattered.  He could see the weird markings etched into the rocky chunks littering the tainted sand.

This was it? The thing he’d leapt across entire states for? Fixit raised his ruined Berluti and kicked the ground. As he inhaled sharply, shaking his head, the powder entered his lungs, and his vision was overtaken...

“Children of Chthon!” The Dweller-in-Darkness crawls, tentacles dragging its massive head over the demon-hosts. “Hear me! It is the Outer Gods who free you now! They who were old when your dread father was but a wrinkle in the Demiurge!”

Masses rise above the hosts like quivering black moons. The demons—leathery skin looking almost charred, sharp crests of their spines running the length of their tails—cower as they recall an ancestral memory of ancient, eternal terror. The Darkness Out of Time—the Elder Daemons...

“LET THE N’GARAI OVERRUN THE EARTHLY PLANE, LITTLE DEMONS!” moaned the chaos. “YOU ARE BUT FORERUNNERS, PAVING THE PATH FOR OUR RETURN!”

“...you!” Fixit said.

Sand trickled off of the forms that rose out of the desert around him. Their heads jutted up into four ridged prongs, under which two red eyes narrowed. Fixit heard them hiss—a hiss overlaid with rapid clicking noises that slowed as the air passed by their fangs.

The demons charged Fixit, who ducked and exploded upwards with both his fists, yelling, “It’s you little shits!” The demons’ skulls imploded under his feet as he landed, and he grabbed two more, palming their heads. They screeched as he clenched his fists and tossed their skeletal bodies aside.

Black blood ran down the Fixit’s gray-muscled arms as he rolled up the sleeves of his white button-up shirt. “Alright, then! This is what I’m here for?” He beckoned with his stumpy fingers. “Bring it on!”

END INTERLUDE 3

Bifröst Bridge

“Aragorn, no!”

The horse bucked wildly in the Sea of Space between Asgard and Earth.

Brunnhilde tugged the reins just behind Aragorn’s wings as he dove at the Rainbow Bridge. Aragorn reared as they landed—whining, eyes wild—even as Brunnhilde spoke soft, soothing tones in his ear.

“Easy. Easy, boy. It’s over now.” She smoothed back his white mane.

Aragorn snorted, shook his head and stamped his front hoof. Otherwise, he didn’t move, and Brunnhilde couldn’t blame him. Afterimages of the woman’s olive-skinned face were still emblazoned on the back of the Valkyrie’s eyelids, and goblin-echoes of the woman’s cry still bounced around in her thoughts.

Perhaps mirages could spawn in the Sea of Space, Brunnhilde thought as Aragorn finally charged forward—perhaps aether collected on the Rainbow Bridge’s surface, the runoff rising up in an illusory fog.

But what she’d seen was no illusion. She couldn’t deny that truth. The woman’s anguish was all too real, too immediate, for Brunnhilde not to feel it herself as she watched Earth roll up on the horizon.

INTERLUDE 4

Peter Parker howled in agony as his usually tingly Spider-Sense became a stabbing pain in his head.  Vibrations of impending danger wracked his body, and he lost his grip on the slender strand of webbing that pulled him through the towering gray walls of Manhattan.

He reached out, groping for a handhold as he fell kicking and writhing, his fingers frantically digging into and clawing away the stone of a building as he tried to find purchase, sliding towards the streets far below. His free fall ended abruptly, and he hung by his fingertips, dangling over a bone-shattering death.

“Jeez...” he whispered as he pulled himself up to sprawl on a ledge, panting, trying to will his heart to beat in a steady, calm rhythm.  “The heck was that?”

Already his mind’s eye was shutting down and shunting the images that he had seen into imagination.  A dark, hideous monstrosity rising up over the skyline—complete with squirming tentacles and rending claws that slashed at his world until only an empty blackness remained.  Death all around.  Nothing left but decay and devastation.  Horror...

It was some time before Spider-Man could even sit up, let alone move from the safety of the ledge. When he finally did, his first thoughts were of his wife.

END INTERLUDE 4

Greenwich Village, New York

Car horns blared as two taxis narrowly missed the winged horse that had spiraled down through the evening sky to land on Bleecker Street. Pedestrians stopped, watching cars pile up on either side of the horse and its rider, the woman of fair skin and hair.

While she seemed oblivious to the pandemonium surrounding her as she crossed the street, her attention was easily drawn by the beam of energy that blasted a hole through the townhouse before her. She flew into the hole atop her steed, her golden sword drawn.

INTERLUDE 5
Atlantis

Colossal stone cogs turned as Prince Namor spun the crank, his back rippling with muscle. The massive disc that made up most of the floor rolled aside, rumbling the labyrinth thunderously. He looked down into the gaping tunnel, which extended below the ocean floor so deeply that even his keen eyes couldn’t see its bottom—only the miles of weaponry and armaments hanging on the stone walls.

It was the old man who’d convinced Namor to open the Atlantean Royal Armory—his Grand Vizier, Vashti. “I apologize, lord,” he’d said. “Words fail me. I don’t fully understand what I felt, but a part of it still lingers under the surface.””

“Try again,” said Namor. “What lingers?”

Vashti dropped his head. “It was as if... an eel suddenly slid up against Atlantis. Only the eel—it was merely one arm of a great squid, one that hides just out of sight. I feel it there, waiting to strike, and the tools to defend against that strike call out to me.”

Vashti’s hunches had proved reliable before. Portents of times to come...

Namor reached the tunnel’s bottom, where an armored chest-piece was fastened to the wall. The ancient Atlantean hieroglyphs etched on its golden surface shimmered in the ethereal glow of the Orichalcum sword hanging next to it.

“The Sword of Kamuu,” Vashti had said. “The Sacred Armor of Atlantis.”

Namor tipped his chin. “These items are reserved for war, Vashti.”

“I know this, lord. But I’m afraid it may well be something worse than war that soon comes to Atlantis.”

END INTERLUDE 5

The Sanctum Sanctorum

Standing in the wrecked double doorway, scrolls under his arm, Wong took in as much of the scene as possible. If he survived this, he’d be the one to clean up this mess. Assuming the sanctum was still standing.

Daimon grappling with the veiny blue-black tentacles that burst forth from Shadowoman’s eyes, ears, and mouth... The Valkyrie arriving through the hole in the side of the sanctum, blown open by a stray beam from the Master...

Or rather, the thing that had taken over and perverted Dr. Strange’s body, and now used the mage’s power to take the quickest route from one part of the sanctum to another. It disappeared down one of the holes it had blasted in the hardwood floor as Wong called out to the Valkyrie, piles of books falling in after it.

“Madame Brunnhilde!”

Without a word, Valkyrie charged and slashed through the tentacles, freeing Daimon from their oily grasp. Shadowoman’s body rippled as if filled by worms, and she made a muffled scream as she vomited up length upon length of more tentacles. Her head reared back, her jaw opening at an impossible angle. A massive bulbous head passed Shadowoman’s black lips, slathered in dark blue ooze, and Shadowoman fell to her knees, gagging.

The thing she’d thrown up—it looked like a giant squid, or an octopus, but with vicious red eyes—curled its limbs around Valkyrie’s waist. “Submit to the Outer Dark!” it garbled.

“Cowards submit, demon!” Valkyrie hacked at the scaly length around her. Black, viscous blood spewed at Dragonfang’s bite. Free, she pulled herself off of her horse and up what was left of the tentacle that had held her till she could feel the creature’s steamy breath on her face. She raised her sword on high. “And I am no coward!”

Down came the sword with a wet SHUNK, plunging into the monster’s glistening forehead. It howled through its mouthful of tentacles as Valkyrie stabbed it again and again, drawing a bubbling blue-black ichor. The creature’s tentacles stiffened, twitching wildly.

“You may rend this flesh,” it hissed as the life lefts its body, “for it is temporary. But we... we are as eternal as fear itself.  We are but forerunners...”

Wong dropped the scrolls and went quickly to Shadowoman’s side. The woman cradled her knees to her chest as she rocked on her tailbone, murmuring.

“Ms. Woods!” Wong said. “Are you hurt?”

“They’ve been there all along,” she sobbed, “scratching away at the other side of reality. Nothing we do matters. I can’t keep living like this. I just—I can’t...”

“Ms. Woods!”

Daimon ran a hand through his hair. “The Dweller-in-Darkness. I can’t believe I didn’t sense it...”

“The Dweller is a Fear Lord,” Wong said. “It must have possessed Ms. Woods. And something else is possessing Dr. Strange!”

“Where is Strange now?” Valkyrie asked, wiping the sword on her cape.

Wong pointed to the gaping chasm in the floor. “There.”

Stepping over the edge, Valkyrie dropped down into the hole. Wong smoothed Shadowoman’s hair.

“What’s wrong with her?” Daimon said.

“I—I’m sorry.” Tears streamed down Shadowoman’s cheeks. “I can’t help it. I—it—it’s just, I’ve wanted to die for the longest time. And that thing, it shoved my nose in it till I thought I was gonna drown! I’ve been through hell since I found those goddam scrolls!”

“The scrolls?” Daimon grabbed them off the floor.

Shadowoman nodded, sniffling. “They’re some kind’a ancient grimoire.”

He studied the scrolls’ markings. “You can read this?”

“It’s...” Shadowoman looked at Wong, gesturing with her hand. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” She stood, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her bodysuit as she eyed the convulsing mass of tentacles on the floor. “It’s similar to Sumerian, only it’s a lot more sophisticated. And I think—I mean, I can’t tell for sure, but I’d guess it’s a lot older than that.”

“You read Sumerian...” Daimon muttered.

“Pre-Sumerian.”

The horse Aragorn reared back as the floor shook and then exploded as the Valkyrie was thrown clear through by a wave of energy. As she landed, the thing that wasn’t Dr. Strange loomed overhead, spittle running off from either side of its mouth. Floating next to it was an iron bound set of books and a key, which disappeared with the thing into a descending disc of light.

Daimon put his hand on Valkyrie’s shoulder. She pushed him back, holding her sword to his throat as she stood. “Tell me what transpires here, devil-spawn!”

“Point that thing somewhere else,” Daimon said, batting the sword away with his free hand. “This isn’t my doing.”

Valkyrie looked to Wong, who nodded in admission. As she dropped her blade, she walked over to Aragorn and petted his mane. “Well?”

Something crashed down on what was left of the floor. A layer of gore caked the tatters of the monster’s designer suit, and its gray skin bore a million bleeding scratches. Its eyes bulged as it stepped forward.

“Ya’ll got about one minute to tell me what the hell’s goin’ on here,” the Hulk said, “before I start snappin’ goddam necks!”

INTERLUDE 6
Citrusville, Florida
The Nexus of All Realities

Ebony mewed in a kitten’s voice at Jen’s side, butting at her hip. She was too numb to feel it. For a moment Jen forgot about the panther, forgot about the lumbering horror before her. She watched the smoke billow up into the canopy. There was the tiniest pinch—snip—then an overwhelming sense of release as the tether that for so long had bound Ted Sallis’ soul to the Man-Thing—to Jen, to this world—was finally severed.

The Shambler turned its eye on Jen and lurched forward. The limbs from its head formed a wall of writhing flesh that closed in on her.

“Shit!” Jen cried. Blue waves of light emitted from her on all sides, slicing through the tightening circle of tentacles, but where one fell into the swamp water, two more took its place.

Jen shrank back as the Shambler drew nearer. Ebony pressed up against the hip of her jeans, whimpering even as Jen’s aura extended to envelop him. They looked beyond the Shambler now to the flames growing ever higher.

Fiery splinters of wood coalesced into a tree trunk skeleton. The top of its skull grazed the canopy’s underside. Charred vines from the pile that had been the Man-Thing snaked up its bones, the swamp water boiling at its ankles. As the brown muck settled, three ruby teardrop eyes emerged, under which three tusk-like tentacles dangled.

When the giant walked the entire swamp quaked, and where it stepped, plants withered and twisted into carnivorous distortions of themselves. Trees melted and animals and insects writhed and mutated.  The boiling green water thickened into sludge. Muck dripped off the colossal perversion of the Man-Thing in great blobs, and where the droplets fell, smaller mirror image offspring materialized with soggy squishing sounds.

As the offspring and the Shambler sloshed toward Jen—all in the shadow of the giant Man-Thing—reality began to rend around her. From the wounds more horrors were born, wailing as they entered the world.

Jen could do nothing but run—sprint so hard her sides hurt and her lungs burned—with Ebony just ahead of her. “Oh god,” she breathed. “Oh god oh god oh god...”

Bubbling up through the sheer terror in which she was drowning was the realization that there was only one man in the world who could possibly handle this: Dr. Stephen Strange.

END INTERLUDE 6

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