Iiiii"mmm baaaacckk. (said in creepy voice)
I watched you when you were sleeping! (To quote phil coulson in the avengers.)
No I didn't. im not that creepy!
Aaannnywaays…here is the next chapter!
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Tony's POV
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
This cannot be happening.
I refuse to believe it. I was in the middle of the frieken' desert. Again!?
No, this cannot be true. I think I've had enough dessert for a lifetime.
The whole time I was in that damn cage, I stood there, trying not to have a full blown panic. I tried taking deep breath in and out, like what Bruce does when he feels like he's losing control, but it didn't help much. I was way too wound up for that to help. I don't know how Bruce does it.
I actually think that this is enough proof to say that the universe does hate me. It goes out of its way to make everything the worst for me. I bet that no one else has a deadly fear of deserts in this place. All everyone else has to worry about is staying alive and looking for food and water.
For me? It brings back the worst memories. I kept having these flashbacks in the cage that made me shiver with fear and leave me shaking to the bone.
I was barely listening to the gamekeepers voice through the high tech speakers. I honestly didn't care if these people had more high tech things than me. I didn't give a damn. I was too busy trying not to think about Afghanistan.
Though, some things did make its way into my brain. The part about this being the hunger games and apparently one "tribute" (so apparently we were called tributes) could survive in the end.
I also caught the part about the jumpsuits. I had to because of the fact that we were supposed to wear the ugly things. Mine was entirely red and gold, with the iron man helmet on the left side.
I noticed that there were people in the cylinders besides myself. On one half of the circle, I saw Bruce who was human form with only his ripped pants on, Natasha and Clint, Nick Fury (ah, not him), Thor, Rogers, and finally…Loki.
I paused when I saw that last one. What the hell was Loki doing here? I swear the last time I saw him was when Thor was taking him, via the rainbow bridge, to Asgard. How could he have gotten here? He would be of some trouble to us. I scoffed. Some? I laughed at my own thoughts somewhat hysterically.
I stopped myself. I was going crazy in here. I needed to take my attention off of my own thoughts, so I looked around the horrible desert again.
On the other half of the circle of cylinders, were a bunch of normal looking teenagers. Apparently they were supposed to be half bloods-children of the Greek gods. I had studied a bit of Greek and Roman mythology when I was still in school. And they were supposed to be just that-myths. I scoffed again. Yeah right. Those Greek myths were real. And I was a magical unicorn on my way to Asgard.
I looked over to the cornucopia and saw that there were alot of swords and knives and things like that. There was actually a whole bunch of different weapon.
The thing that worried me, though, was that my armour was also there. After the countdown ended, everyone would run out of their platforms like Thor when he sees pop tarts (trust me you do not want to be in the way of that). Everyone would want their weapon first, but what if thought my armour was cool (which it is) and took it?
'No' I told myself firmly.
I could not afford to think like that. I had enough stuff on my mind without that to worry about.
Just as I was lost to my own thoughts, the countdown began.
No, it couldn't be happening now! I wasn't ready!
10
9
8
I looked around frantically and saw that Bruce was looking at me with concerned eyes. I didn't acknowledge him, and tried to stand still, not that it helped with the shaking.
7
6
5
I couldn't do this. My emotions were slowly crumbling.
4
3
Why us?
2
1
…0
Just as the booming voice said zero, I slipped into yet another flashback.
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I couldn't do this anymore.
It had been hours since I barley managed to escape from that hell of a prison. Yinsen's death still fresh in my head. I could feel tears rolling down my face. I wondered if I would even get out of this damn desert alive.
It had been hours upon hours since I had my last drink of water. In the prison, they hardly gave us any water. Just barely enough to keep us alive.
The heat was intense. It was hot enough to cook an egg right on the sand. I didn't know how much longer I would last. I took off the jacket of my suit and tossed it over my head.
I started walking again. Well, it wasn't really walking, it was more like stumbling. I kept seeing images of Yinsen dying in my hands. I wanted to avenge his death, but I could only do that if I could get out of this shit desert.
And that's what drove me.
Knowing that Yinsen dies only for me to escape. I had to fulfill what he died for. That's what kept me stumbling through the desert. I would've been done hours ago if it weren't for that.
After about another hour, I couldn't find and sign of civilization. I was almost completely out of energy. I knew it would just be a matter of time before I couldn't go anymore.
I was right.
Just as I suspected would happen eventually, my legs buckled and I fell to the ground, hard.
I laid there, just about ready to give up. My throat was parched and my stomach rumbling. I was on the brink of unconsciousness.
I felt the rough sand in my mouth, almost choking me just as the water had.
Just as I was about to fade into the dark, Yinsen's death punched me in the face yet again. I saw his face in my metal hands slowly dying, trying to form a word but not being able to.
"Don't waste you're life stark" the words said as clear as if he were right beside me.
My eyes shot open, the dry world filling my vision. I had to keep going. I couldn't stop now, not when Yinsin died trying to free me. I hoisted myself up, difficultly. As I got up, I swayed on my feet, trying to regain my balance. I took one step forward, then another, and another, stopping every few steps to regain my balance time and time again.
Just like that, I kept going hoping for someone, anyone, to see me in this godforsaken land. Hoping for a helicopter to see me and rescue me.
After all, that hope was all I had.
A hope that would only last for so long.
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I was ripped back into the present.
All around me, there was chaos. People were running ever which way, while I was still standing on my little podium. The sound around me seemed muffled and shot.
That last flashback had me shaking more violently that the others had. I could feel the cold sweat on my face and hands. I lifted my hand to my face and saw that it was visibly shaking as well. Shivers went down my spine as I couldn't get that flashback out of my head.
"Tony! TONY!"
Someone was shouting my name in the distance. I cound't hear the voice properly. Who was it?
"Come on, we have to leave. NOW!"
Now this person was shaking my shoulder. I turned around slowly, only to be met with Roger's face. As I stared at him, I realized that he looked blurry and I couldn't see him properly. I couldn't see anything properly.
He grabbed hold of my hand in a death grip, and dpulled me to the cornucopia.
I was pulled along, stumbling and tripping, still in shock. Once we got to the cornucopia, Rogers grabbed his shield from one of the tables. I watched as he frantically looked around for my suitcase of armour.
As I was watching him look for my armor, I saw a sword come down on me from the corner of my eye. I didn't react as I saw Rogers raise his shield between me and the swords. I heard a clang as the sword hit the shield. I only caught a glimpse of the guy who was trying to hit me with the sword. All I saw was a green jumpsuit before he ran away into the desert.
"Stark, get you're armour!"
I just pointed at it shakily on the floor next to the table where Rogers had gotten his shield. I didn't make a move to get it.
Steve noticed me pointing at it and gave me a frustrated look as he went over to it and lifted it up.
"Come on then! The other Avengers are waiting for us in the distance," came Rogers' strained voice.
Still pulling me along, we ran the opposite direction from where the other teenagers were going. In the distance, I barely saw a group of people standing in a circle. Rogers and I were running toward them. He was holding my wrist so tightly that I had lost the feeling in my fingers, but I didn't protest. He was pretty much preventing me from falling face first on the ground by tripping so much.
After what felt like hours of running, we finally got to the other avengers. I saw everyone. Natasha, Clint, Bruce, Thor and Fury. Natasha was wearing a red jumpsuit with a gun on the left side, while Clint wore a black one with a gun as well. Bruce's was green with fist, Thor's yellow and silver with his hammer mjolnir, and finally fury's a menacing gray with knives.
I suddenly realised that I hadn't seen Loki since the countdown ended. I didn't really care where he went, as long as he wasn't anywhere near us.
Rogers placed my armour and his shield on the ground and turned on me.
"What's you're problem stark? Huh? What do you think you're doing standing there making us do all the work for you?"
Everyone looked at me as they heard Steve say this.
"Yeah that was really stupid of you." Fury snarled.
"You could've been killed Stark." Natasha said.
"I think that was the last thing on my mind," I muttered angrily as I dropped down on to the hot sand, frustrated, angry as hell, and just plain depressed.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Bruce's sympathetic voice came from beside me.
I put my head in my hands and pulled at my hair.
"You people don't know crap!" I said. "I'm here, in the middle of the friecken' desert! You don't know shit!" by the end of that sentence, I was shouting. "You people don't take a clue, do you? In fact I think that this is good enough proof to say that the universe hates me once and for all1 it goes out of its way to make everything worse for ME! I bet none of you are afraid of deserts are you?"
I looked up again to be met with Bruce's sad eyes, and even Natasha and Fury had some sympathy in their rock hard gazes. The rest were just looking at me with a confused stare.
I put my head back in my hands. Apparently Bruce had noticed the confused looks and explained what had happened. I had told him one day in the lab about what had happened to me in Afghanistan. I was probably drunk when I told him, or I would have never told anyone. So now he was telling the rest of them. Not that it made a difference at this point.
I heard Bruce's faint voice, "Tony was held hostage in a desert camp in Afghanistan and tortured for three months. He barely made it out alive." I was thankful that he didn't go into the details much.
"Oh" someone said softly. The rest gasped.
Yeah. They didn't know crap. I felt another wave of depression roll over me.
"Come on tony, you can do this. I know that there's going to be no way for you to get used to this, but please at least get yourself together for us. We need iron man. We need you." Bruce told me.
"You need me?" I asked softly. I remembered the words from the shield file about me. Iron man: yes. Tony Stark: no. They didn't get that Tony Stark and Iron man were the same person. I didn't think anyone did. They always saw iron man and Tony Stark as two different people. And I knew that even the avengers thought that somewhat. So I was actually surprised when Bruce spoke again.
"Yes we do."
I looked up, surprised. He had his hand held out in front of me to help me up. I accepted it and pulled myself up. I looked at my fellow teammates, and smiled softly. I had come to a decision.
"Look, I don't know ho wrong I can last like this, but you can bet on hell that I'll try."
"Nice!" Clint clapped me on the back.
"Friend Stark, you are back!" Thor exclaimed.
"Well, it's not like I went anywhere…" I started, but I knew what he meant. Inside, I was crumbling emotionally. At least for now, I would try and hold a mask of ego and self-centeredness to hold together the broken pieces.
"Now that we've got that over with," I gave Fury a glare. "Let's get down to business. What do we know is happening?"
"We know that this is the hunger games and that the last person alive, wins." Clint said.
"Yeah and of course that is our main problem right now." Rogers replied, going into full captain mode. "I don't think that they're joking when they say that this could last as long as 7 months. At least long enough until only one person is left."
"well, we'll have to worry about that later. Right now, we have to figure out where to get our food and water." Fury said. "What have we got so far?"
"Well, I got 2 water bottles, a backpack, and 3 packs of packaged foods." A quiet voice said.
Everyone turned to look at Bruce who had said that.
"How that you get that much friend Bruce?" Thor asked.
"Oh, um, I just growled at anyone who got in the way. It was pretty easy since I was already on edge by then…" he trailed off, then he chuckled and said, "Even I thought it was kind of scary."
Everyone looked at him amazed. Bruce shifted his feet and fiddled nervously with his hands from all the attention he was getting.
"Well…I only got 1 water bottle." Natasha stated, taking away the attention off of Bruce.
"I have one water bottle as well." Thor boomed.
"One bag of…something." Clint said.
"Two bags of weird looking chips." Fury held out the two futuristic looking bags.
"Well, since we got nothing," Steve pointed at himself and me, "We should find out what's in the backpack."
Bruce took off the backpack from behind his back and opened the zipper. Inside was another water bottle with no water in it, a sleeping bag and blanket, two knives and a gun, and finally an empty bowl.
"I call the gun." Natasha grabbed for the gun in the backpack and shoved it in one of the pockets of the jumpsuit.
"Then I'll get the knives." Fury said as he took the knives and twirled then in his hands.
"I think that with the four water bottles," I started, "We should be able to last 6 or 7 days if we only drink half a bottle each day." I noticed that my voice still had a slight tremor in it. I tried to cover it up. "For the food, we could last maybe 4 or 5 days, give or take a day."
"So that means that we should find a good source of water and food in the next 4-5 days." Fury stated.
"yeah." We all muttered signs of agreement. There was an awkward pause as we stood, trying to figure out what to do.
Suddenly, Rogers said, "Hey did everyone get their weopons and whatever else they need for fighting?"
Everyone nodded. I saw that everyone had their respectable weapons (well except for Bruce of course).
"Good." Another awkward pause.
Then Clint spoke up. "Wait, I have a question." He paused as if waiting for an invitation to ask his question. When no one said anything, he continued.
"Did you all get here through that weird black hole?"
Scattered yeahs came from the group once again.
"All right, just making sure I'm not crazy."
"Did everyone see Loki on one the podiums?" Bruce asked the next question.
Again, everyone said yes.
"We should look out for him. Make sure he doesn't come in our way. I'm pretty sure we all don't want another incident happening." Fury said. Just as he was about to open his mouth to say something else, Thor's voice came out of the blue.
"we should depart now, if we were to find water and food quickly." He had probably wanted to change the subject.
"wait." I said suddenly, surprising myself.
Everyone turned to look at me. I went over to my suitcase that was my also my armour. I laid it down on the ground so that fist holes appeared in the armour. I formed my hands into fists and put them in the respective holes. I brought my arms up and the chest plate latched onto my chest. The rest of the suit followed, and in no time flat I was encased in the red and silver iron man armour.
"Hey, this armour looks different." Rogers observed.
"Yeah, apparently the people who run this thing brought my old armour instead of my latest one." I shrugged from inside the armour. "This'll have to do, I guess."
"What are you doing, Stark?" Fury asked, annoyed.
"Well, I thought it was pretty obvious that I was putting on my armour." I smirked.
The face plate clanked down and the bluish screen was now in front of me.
"JARVIS, scan the entire desert for any sign of food or water."
"Yes sir."
There was a pause as JARVIS scanned.
"Sir, it appears to be that there is no sign of any life forms at all. In normal deserts there are at least some forms of life, but it appears not in this one."
"There's not even any cacti?"
"No sir."
I was dumbfounded. How could there be no food or water at all? How were we going to survive?
"Ok, JARVIS, scan the entire desert again. How big is it?"
There was another pause. Then…
"The desert seems to go for a 20km radius. Then the signal stops and I can't read anything past that. I think that you are in a very big domed arena because I can't read anything more that a 20km radius in the sky as well."
Of course. This is a fighting arena. Of course they wouldn't let us rome around in the wild. The people who run this, they probably control the entire arena, making things happen whenever they want to.
"So there is no food or water at all?" I asked just to make sure I wasn't hearing things.
"No sir."
Oh no.
"Deactivate the suit JARVIS." The suit started to disassemble itself from around me until it formed back into its transportable briefcase. I had added that feature a while ago so that it was voice controlled.
I looked at the avengers. They were all looking at me with worried expressions on their faces.
"Guys, I have some really bad news."
"What…" Bruce said slowly.
"There is absolutely no wildlife in this desert. That means not food or water.
Dun dun dun….
Cliffhanger!
So how'd you like that. That should shed some light on whats going to happen in this story.
I love all the reviews guys and please, keep reviewing!
-Detective DG