It started when my mom was watching THOR, and I overheard Thor call Coulson "Son of Coul". That was a year ago. The actual idea came to me at work the other day.
Standard disclaimers apply – I don't own the characters or any copyrighted materials, yada yada. Apparently we don't actually have to post disclaimers anymore? I'm just so used to it, it feels weird not to.
Worlds Collide
By Song Of A Free Heart
Prologue
"What could have done this?"
Eret was wondering the same thing as he moved through the ruins of what had been a GUARDIAN compound. A temporary one, yes. But he had been in enough of them to know they weren't the kind of things that could be blown over by a gust of wind.
He had seen destruction before. And he had seen death. Both in his life before, and now in his work for the GUARDIANS. But this… this was a whole new level, like nothing he had ever seen.
A large swath of the compound had been torn apart. Not deconstructed. Torn to pieces. While the agents who had manned it, mostly scientists and paper pushers, had been tossed around like rag dolls.
Most of them hadn't survived.
Eret stepped carefully, between broken beams, scraps of sheet plastic, and scattered tools.
It had rained the morning before, so the thick clay had taken footprints like a dream. And that was what Eret found his eyes returning to repeatedly.
Behind him, the scientist he was accompanying, Jane Porter, gasped as her foot accidentally brushed against a fallen body.
"I can't believe one man did this," she said, raising a hand to her mouth in horror. "It's not possible."
"It's what the reports say," he said. The whole scene was relatively bloodless, he noticed, which unnerved him as much as anything else.
The survivors – the ones who had been assigned to the areas that had been left alone, or the ones with the sense to get to those sections – all claimed they had been attacked by one man. Though it was hard to tell if their descriptions of a seven foot man, with dark hair and tattoos over his bulging muscles, was accurate, or the result of their trauma.
Ever since Eret had heard the accounts, something nagged at the back of his mind. Something he was missing. Though when he tried to follow that feeling, all he came back to was memories of his mother singing him lullabies when he had been a child.
"It's not possible," Porter repeated.
Eret crouched down, the rich smell of damp clay filling his nose when he inhaled. Familiar, reassuring, and, in many ways, simple. He ran his fingers a fraction of an inch above the ground. Specifically, over the footprints imprinted in the earth. With clay like this, they would probably last until the next strong rain. And no one had been through here before them, so the impressions were easy to read.
"No," he said, eyes searching the area around him for details to confirm the pieces he was putting together. Hard as it was to believe. "There was just one."
"How would you know that?" Porter asked, her tone unconvinced.
"Everyone here was a GUARDIAN, right?"
"Of course."
"All our boots are standard issue, with the same tread." He pointed to one of the footprints that bore the tread he now recognized without a second glance.
Porter lifted one foot, looking at the tread of her own boot, then back at the footprints around them. Eret could keep track of which ones were hers by the fact her feet were smaller than any of the others.
"There's only one tread that doesn't match," he said, pointing it out.
Not only was the tread unfamiliar, it was unlike any Eret had seen before. As near as he could tell, it was a practical pattern, with both deep and shallow grooves that would probably make the shoes ideal for any terrain. Even besides that, it was large and deep, while the length of the strides suggested that the agents hadn't been exaggerating the man's height.
Porter came over to examine the print he pointed out.
Eret lined his own foot up next to the print, putting all his weight down on that foot.
"Maybe it was a group wearing the same kind of shoes."
Stepping back, Eret crouched down again to compare the two prints. His own was slightly smaller. The difference in depth wasn't noticeable. But when he looked closely, he was sure his was shallower.
"No," he said, standing up straight. "They're all the same size, and there's only one set."
She looked at the prints again, following them with his eyes. Then back at him as she braced her hands on her hips. "And here I thought you were just the muscle sent to keep me safe."
That was exactly what he was. In an official capacity, at least.
"I used to hunt up north," he said, once more moving forward as he followed both the tracks, and the path of destruction.
"Oh." Apparently she didn't approve of hunting. "From your accent, I would have guessed you were from London."
From her own accent, Eret guessed she was probably from the same area.
"I was raised there," he said. "My mother's originally from Scandinavia." That was the simple version of the story, at least.
He frowned as the trail zigzagged.
The destruction of the compound hadn't been a result of the fight. It had been ruined on purpose, though he couldn't guess why. To make a point? If so, what point?
"How did you end up as a GUARDIAN?"
"I'm enlisted."
"Oh."
All GUARDIANS knew what "enlisted" meant. He had been caught doing something the organization didn't want the general public to know about. But they had decided he wasn't a threat, so they had offered him the chance to work off his debt to society in their employ.
It was the only way he ever would have joined up with an agency of any kind.
"What did you do?"
Eret glanced back, annoyed both with the distraction, and the blunt question.
"'Trapping an endangered species, with the intent to sell illegally'," he quoted from the charges. "Multiple counts."
He came to a stop at a place where debris covered the trail. He crouched down, lifting the sheet plastic warily, in case there was another body underneath.
"What species?" Porter asked.
Eret was only half paying attention to the conversation (or interrogation, as it were), more interested in his investigation. It was why they had been sent, and Jane didn't seem to be doing much on that front.
The feeling that he was missing something still continued to nag at the back of his mind. Not something obvious. Just something he should be able to see. Some connection he should have made.
"Dragons," he said, without thinking. "I worked for Drago Blüdvist."
"You were a dragon trapper?"
The righteous indignation in her voice made him wish he had ignored the question. Or had never let the conversation get to this subject at all. Especially since he was trying to find what he was missing. It was kind of hard to do when she was lecturing him.
She continued to go on, telling him all the reasons he was a terrible person.
The air crackled with electricity, causing the hairs on his arm to stand up. A shudder raced up his spine, and over his shoulder.
Above them, the clouds were gathering. Heavy, dark… and purple. Not the dark grey of storm clouds that occasionally looks purple, or even the purple of the clouds at night when it snows. But a deep, bright, almost jewel toned violet.
Again, Eret felt the air crackle. But there was no sign of lightning in the clouds.
"Be quiet," he said, not glancing back.
"You trapped those magnificent creatures, and sold them to a man like Drago Blüdvist, and you expect me to—"
"Shut up!" he snapped, putting the weight of authority behind his voice. Not something he had been able to use in a while. He was pleased to see that it still work, since Porter fell silent.
"This compound," he said. "Why was it here?" He knew the answer, but felt the need to double check.
"They were investigating unusual weather patterns."
"Like those?"
Eret pointed to the purple clouds, which had begun to swirl as though someone were stirring them up. All the while coming closer.
"I would imagine so," Porter said, her voice hushed and awed. "Yes."
The clouds were now directly over their heads. Eret's scalp tingled as the air continued to grow more charged.
Still no rain.
But small arcs of gold lightning began to appear through the clouds. If it could be called lightning. It looked more like sparks than anything else.
Now the clouds seemed to bear down on them, coming closer and closer to the ground.
"Oh, goodness," Jane whispered.
Just before a section of the clouds dropped towards them, as if something heavy had just been dropped through the clouds, and brought a purple twister swirling in its wake.
There was a burning smell. Familiar enough to recognize. Alien enough to be strange. It was more like dragon fire than burning wood, with metallic undertones, and some element he couldn't begin to guess at. Not bad. Just… unnamable.
The descending section of cloud seemed to explode when it hit the ground. Surrounding them in the smell, as well as in an amethyst colored cloud. Eret inhaled, and felt as though the burning smell filled his throat, coating the inside of his mouth, all the way down to his lungs. He coughed, to try and clear it.
When he looked up, through the fog, he could make out a figure through the haze.
"Oh," he breathed.
As that thing nagging at the back of his mind finally clicked into place. Only once it was so obvious it made him feel like an idiot.