Accidental Captain
An Avengers Fanfiction
by Pheather McKelle
I do not own the Avengers nor their characters, I'm just a girl with a dream. :3
I haven't seen too many Chitauri invasion survival stories, and I got a little bored with my other stories, so here's a little oneshot I made up in my free time. Should I expand? Let me know in the reviews!
It wasn't the worst coffee I'd ever had, but it was certainly up there; it tasted like it was only coffee-flavored dishwater. The croissant was damp and dense, and the cup that contained said dishwater coffee had a lipstick stain on it. I had abandoned both the coffee and the croissant in favor of today's headline, the only serviceable thing in the cafe, and was just starting to scan the front page when I heard a deep, sonorous boom that rocked the bowels of New York and seemed to echo through the maze of subway systems. A bomb? The rest of the cafe patrons looked as confused as I was, and the majority crowded around the large storefront windows, peering out onto the wide street clogged with cars.
"Look at Stark Towers!" someone outside the cafe shouted. I peered at the tower where, way off in the distance, what looked like a pillar of white light tinged with blue pierced the heavens, a black portal to nothingness opened like a rip in the atmosphere, and multiple… Things flew out. Stark, what the hell are you doing now, I grumbled to myself, poking my way through the mass of people to get a closer look.
Suddenly, one of those things flew past, making a horrible ricocheting screech that made my hair stand on end, riding on what looked like a hovering platform made of a dark iridescent black metal. It wielded a gun, the likes of which I haven't seen before even with my limited knowledge of firearms. He aimed it directly at the cafe, leisurely taking aim. My eyes widened.
"Everyone get down!" I yelled instinctively, ducking behind the counter along with several others. A bright blue ball of what seemed to be pure crackling energy exploded the front window, shattering glass and smoldering drywall, blasting apart the front counter but leaving the back relatively untouched. Fragments rained down on bodies, both alive and dead, dust and wall material crumbling into my hair.
There were only five survivors in the previously busy cafe, none of whom could hear because of the explosion. A high-pitched ringing stuck in my ears and I hoped it would fade away soon. I pawed at my ear, trying to get hearing back, and was relieved when I could hear the dry rustle of skin through hair. The others too seemed to be getting their hearing back.
"Is everyone okay?" I yelled, the fringes of my sentence edging sluggishly through my ears. They nodded, scrabbling at their ears, trying to get more sensory information. I looked around the cafe, surveying the damage. The whole front wall had been blasted open, exposing the interior shop to the rampaging extraterrestrials that pillaged the streets beyond. More of their kind kept a steady stream of refreshments as a few clumsy ones rammed their vehicles into walls, the handling appearing worse than a shopping cart. I unconsciously filed that information away as I turned back to the survivors.
"We need to get out of here, it's not safe." I said, gingerly stepping around a charred body. The others, too scared or too naturally submissive to argue, followed my lead, skirting the corpses. We edged along the mostly intact shopping plaza which bordered a wide street, making our little party prime targets. Cars were overturned, people running in panic, some slamming into us. One turned and fled with the tide, until a squad of aliens herded us the way I was going.
"TO THE BASEMENT!" I shouted to no one in particular, dashing headlong for a solid-looking cement building, holding open the door so the few pedestrians who heard me could enter safely. One became two until most of the street had flung through the doors and down to the depths of the building. I was the last to follow, closing the door as tightly as I could and shutting all the windows.
The buildings were old, and had interlinking basements. Though dank and dreary, people could walk around somewhat comfortably. There were ground-shaking booms as streets cracked and buildings crumbled. The dim fluorescent lights flickered with the explosions, the people too scared to do much more than whisper.
A clang and a blast from upstairs caused a few people to whimper. My head whipped towards the stairs, my ears straining to hear the sounds from above. My hearing had improved significantly, though I still had difficulty with softer sounds. However, these were loud, clomping boots and distinctly foreign clicks and guttural words. These were aliens.
My heart raced and all thoughts seemed to vanish. A quiet squeal snapped my attention back to the situation.
"Shh!" someone corrected. The whole room had gone completely quiet. Whether that person was just loud or the aliens had particularly sensitive hearing, I never knew, but their clicks and growls stopped and the clomp of their boots became decidedly less noisy. I knew they were heading for the basement door, and I was right in their line of fire. I glanced around desperately, but only found the horrified, somewhat sympathetic looks of people who had lost hope. Suddenly, my gaze fell on something red. A crowbar.
My cold, clammy hands gripped the slick, slightly rusted metal, my limbs shaking with fear as I crept closer to the stairwell, eyes trained on the door. Everyone inched back, crowding against the far wall, staring horror-struck, their eyes pinned to the door.
I never knew how I rolled to my feet after the explosion knocked me back, all I knew is that somehow my old self-defense lessons went into effect as the crowbar somehow found its way into what I could only assume was the mouth of one and cracked the cranium of the other. It wasn't the prettiest display of crude martial arts, but it got the job done, though my upper left arm was signed by their strange guns.
Picking one up, I examined it for any clues as to its workings and saw that it was similar to the designs of earth guns. A trigger and a handle. How it was powered or the ammunition it used was beyond me. It was fairly light and the tip glowed bright blue, and seemed to hum with energy.
It seemed as though when they died, there was a signal that told others where to find them, since not five minutes later another small gang of loners burst into the building. One other volunteer tried to dispatch of them with minimal complications, but both the accuracy and the range of the weapons were not calibrated for humans in mind. I ducked behind an overturned desk where we were taking refuge.
"This is why I'm not a soldier." He growled into his grizzly brown beard, hoping that whatever ammo the gun had didn't run out. I nodded tersely, quickly peeking out from behind the desk.
"Two at my three o'clock." I said, scooting to a more comfortable position and thanking my lucky stars I had decided to wear flats to my job interview. The man nodded, whipping around a trying to pop them in the head. The ball of energy sailed past them a hair's breath away, colliding with the opposite wall and blasting a large hole in the cement. The whole building trembled.
"Please tell me you didn't take out any structural support." I asked as I felt the ground shake. He grimaced.
"I'll hold them off, you get everyone else out." He said, standing from his squatting position and firing in their general direction, forcing them to take cover. "GO!" he yelled when he saw my hesitation, shoving me back with a free hand. I scrambled back, stumbling once on debris.
"Wait!" I called, turning around. "What's your name?"
"Daniel Loor!" He grunted without turning around. "And yours?"
"Jennifer Anders!" I yelled before dashing down to the basement.
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