Captain America:The First Avenger~PLOT TWIST
Captain America stood before the Red Skull, both arms clutched in the vise-like grip of HYDRA guards. To the casual observer, he appeared to be a prisoner, but in fact, everything was going according to plan.
Gloatingly, the Red Skull stepped forward. "Arrogance may not be a uniquely American trait, but I must say, you do it better than anyone. But there are limits to what even you can do, Captain. Or did Erskine tell you otherwise?"
Cap stared the villain in the eye. "He told me you were insane."
"He resented my genius and tried to deny me what was rightfully mine." The Red Skull paused and regarded his enemy. "But he gave you everything." He paused again. "So, what made you so special?"
"Nothin', I'm just a kid from Brooklyn," the Captain responded.
Suddenly infuriated by his answer, Red Skull punched him in the face.
Rogers smiled irritatingly. "I can do this all day."
Red Skull drew his pistol. "Of course you can, of course. But, unfortunately, am on a tight schedule."
As he prepared to shoot his enemy, his feet slowly left the floor. He fired, but Steve had already pushed off the floor and was bounding along the ceiling.
"So am I," he cried as the Howling Commandos burst through the window and floated after their leader. In the zero gravity environment, Schmidt ran for it in massive bounds. The team pursued him and Captain America hurled his mighty shield as HYDRA guards hovered into the room.
"We're in, assault team, go!" He ordered and American soldiers flew into the room, leaving the floor as they entered the building. Everyone was bouncing off walls as the battle raged.
Rogers stared at Peggy Carter as she floated gracefully in through the door, blowing the heads off several HYDRA troops. His mouth dropped open.
"Weren't you about to, uh—" she gestured at the door that Schmidt had disappeared through.
Steve was offended. "Do you think I'm too slow to catch him if I take a moment to admire your beauty?" he raged.
Peggy took matters into her own hands. She kicked him, sending him flying down the hallway with a slowly fading shriek. He rocketed into the aircraft hangar, knocking guards down as he shot through the room like a human cannonball. His velocity waned just as Schmidt boarded a jet and he could only float helplessly as his enemy began to slip out of his reach. Then Peggy was beside him in a car that I guess was gravity manipulative since it could still drive. They shot off in pursuit. Steve stood on the edge of the car, Peggy holding his ankle so he wouldn't float away.
"Steady, steady," they approached the plane.
He prepared to climb inside when, "Wait," Peggy said.
"What?" Steve demanded. "If you think I'm so incompetent as to require parting advice of some sort—" He shut up as she kissed him. He stood, waiting to see what would happen next.
"I ain't kissin' yuh," the other soldier, the guy who had trained him, said.
Steve frowned. "Are you saying I'm unattractive? Do you think I have some sort of disease? It isn't like I'd want to be kissed by you, but you didn't have to say that!"
He was about to continue when Peggy rolled her eyes and took matters into her own hands once again. She shoved him upward and into the plane just as it shot off the runway and into the sky.
Steve stood inside the plane, getting his bearings. A HYDRA guard noticed him and was about out call the alarm when a drumming of hooves was heard. The unicorns burst through the door from deep inside the plane, sparkly manes and tails flying, running over the HYDRA guard and trampling him to death.
They stopped in front of Steve and stared at him with their big brown eyes, snorting softly. A short Irish woman with graying red hair and a severe expression stepped from behind them.
Steve gave a cry of surprise. "Mother!"
She stared at him, then ran forward and hugged him. "You've gotten so much bigger!" she said, looking him over approvingly. "You must have been eating your spinach and drinking your milk and staying away from bad boys and taking your medicine and not overexerting yourself and—"
"Actually," Steve said, "I joined the army and ate gruel and trained with bad boys and got lots of fresh air and very little rest with lots of training and—"
"Stop!" she cried, a horrified expression on her face. "To bed with you at once!" She looked over his outfit. "You're already in you're pajamas at least," she said approvingly.
Steve bristled. "Don't call me a weakling!" he yelled. "I'm strong now, for punching bad guys!" He threw the shield across the room and it slammed into the wall, sticking their and spooking the unicorns who ran away.
"You really must get some rest!" Mrs. Rogers cried, ringing her hands.
Steve turned to her. "I thought you were dead," he said. "How did you come back? Anyway, please don't be so overprotective. You never even told me any of those things before you died anyway!"
She looked upset. "I know, I wanted to stay in Heaven and play with sparkly unicorns, but the plot twists brought me back, with a new personality."
"This is all very touching," came Schmidt's voice, "but I'm afraid I must get on with my evil plot to destroy the world."
He aimed a gun at them. Steve disappeared. Mrs. Rogers screamed.
She glared at Red Skull. "I don't know who you are," she said, "but with you're fever you ought to be in bed. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You're flushed and obviously very sick, and your delirium must be making you think you're a super villain."
Red Skull looked confused. Then he rolled his eyes and raised the gun again. Mrs. Rogers screamed and fainted, just as the shield suddenly disappeared from where it was stuck in the wall. With a metallic clang, Red Skull collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
Invisibly, Steve ran forward and raised Mrs. Rogers from where she lay. Her eyes fluttered open. Then she screamed.
"Don't worry, Ma, I'm just invisible." Steve said.
"No, it isn't that Mrs. Rogers said, her voice stuffy. "Look!"
Where his hands touched her, her skin was pink and swelling rapidly. "I'm allergic to you."
Steve would have looked taken aback, but he couldn't since he was invisible. Then he remembered he was supposed to take every statement as a personal insult. "How dare you say that about me," he said. "I'm your son! I just saved your life and all you can do is try to get rid of me!"
"You ought to go up to the cockpit and try to land this thing," she said.
"SEE!" he cried, "you're trying to get rid of me!" Then the plane jolted sharply as it hit turbulence and he ran forward, seeing sense.
Then the lights went out. Steve held his shield in front of him, using it to absorb the impact as he crashed into various things in the dark. He felt his way into the cockpit and sat down. He could feel the glass of the plane's nose, but outside it was pitch dark, too. The sun must be on strike, he realized. Probably fair, side I guess they haven't adjusted it's pay for 4 billion years, and with inflation and all…the results were staggering. It was probably getting like 4 billionths of a cent a day.
A hysterical maniacal laugh bubbled in his throat as he felt the control panel. It blinked its eyes and seemed to taunt him, telling he would never be its master. He pushed buttons randomly, then the plane dissolved into pink goo and he pulled his uniform off and splashed in it, wearing only underwear.
It disappeared and he cried, sucking his thumb to console himself. "I have to be calm, even though the goo is gone," he whispered. "Hum-dee-dee-dee-dee…" he pushed buttons again and again as ghosts floated from the speakers and chewed on his hair. He was going crazy.
He flapped his hand around and lightning spurted from his fingers, illuminating the cabin. Somehow he knew he was using the force. He reached out with his mind, and reached through the giggling cucumber vines that filled the cockpit and switched on the intercom.
"This is Captain Rogers, do you read me?" he said.
"Steve is that you? Are you all right?" Peggy's frantic tone kept him from seeing the statement as a insult to his ability to care for himself.
"Schmidt's knocked out," he said.
"Alright, I'll help you find a safe landing site," she said.
"Kukhona ngeke kube ukufika ephephile, Peggy," There isn't going to be a safe landing, Peggy, he said. "I Okumelwe wafaka wakhe emanzini." I gotta put her in the water.
"Kore o okonau ni wa shinaide kudasai. Wareware wa jikan o motte, wareware wa sore o dōsa suru koto ga dekimasu." Please don't do this, we have time, we can work it out. Peggy said, speaking Japanese in a lovely British accent if that's even possible.
His moment of sanity passed. The plane began fishtailing wildly as he bit the flying instruments, tearing rabidly at the control panel.
"Īe, sonoyōni sutību! Sore o funsai shinaide kudasai! Sonogo, tabun anata wa sore o tsukurudarou, sore o chakuriku kurasshu shite mite kudasai!" No, not that way Steve! Don't smash it! Try to crash land it! Then maybe you'll make it out! Her voice was frantic, but to Steve it sounded like: "Watashi wa anata no insutorumentopaneru-nai ni kakurete aku no Nihon no supaida to watashi wa yukkuri to itai hodo anata o korosu tame ni koko ni imasu yo." I'm an evil Japanese spy hiding inside your instrument panel and I'm here to kill you slowly and painfully.
Steve only bit the buttons with renewed vigor, tearing at them in the dark.
Then Red Skull came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Steve jumped and bit him. The evil super soldier knocked him away.
"Pray, goode Sir, but we appear to be in an evil predicament. It would be to our advantage to suspend our feud until a more fortuitous moment," surprised by his enemy's sudden conversion and lapse into olde Englysh, he relinquished his attack of the controls and ignited his lightsaber, giving the HYDRA leader time to fly him out. Peggy's voice crackled over the loudspeaker, but he couldn't hear what she said.
Schmidt heard her voice, and noticed the Captain's compass with Peggy's picture. "Is yon bodacious beauty thy lover? Verily, she is more than passing fair."
"Urm, thank you," Steve said, momentarily recovering his sanity. A small fuzzy bundle rolled from underneath the command deck, an stopped, purring, against his leg. Steve used the force and found out it was called a tribble. When he looked down, there were five of them. They rolled underneath the controls once again, and wires sparked and fizzled as they chewed them up. The plane plummeted downward in a free fall.
"You purring devils!" Steve cried. The plane hit the ice and sank.
70 years later
When the Captain awoke, the plot twists no longer plagued him or Peggy, and Red Skull had not been found in the plane wreckage. He was presumed to have been eaten by the tribbles. Though he missed the Red Skull's Shakespearean charm, and the possibility of someone more old-fashioned than he, he knew that in the long run it was for the best. He went to join the Avengers, but unfortunately the plot twists followed him. (For more on that see Attack of the Plot Twists, by Thalion Estel).
Back in D.C., one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents who had helped de-ice him handed his daughter her new pet. The little ball of fur purred softly.
THE END