(AN/ Hey folks it's Garouge/Crewefox with a day early update as a apology for the late update last week, thank you all for you patience and your continuing support. And to my dear friends of the Dev team thank you for sticking with me and helping me through this difficult time atm. So without further ado let's get cracking with this chapter...)
Chapter 9 – The Champions
Roar was already trading blows with the green skinned attacker while everyone else ran at the mystery enemies, each team member taking on a different one but all Scarlet was interested in was the one with a lighting bolt on her chest. But as she closed the distance, the leader outstretched her fist but it became unnaturally long and her fist became the size of a boulder. "Crap!" Scarlet reacted, jumping out of the way at the last second "What the hell are you!?"
The attacker drew back her fist which returned to it's original size "My name's Ms. Marvel and I'm here to take out the trash!" the polymorph yelled with confidence.
"Trash? Oh, now you're asking for it!" Scarlet snarled before charging again at her raven haired foe, as Scarlet got within ten yards of Ms. Marvel she once again stretched out an arm with a massive fist balled up for a punch. Scarlet saw the move coming and leapt onto her opponent's outstretched arm and ran up it swiftly before slamming both her large rabbit like feet in Ms. Marvel's face. As soon as Scarlet's feet connected, she used the momentum to jump up in the air leaving Ms. Marvel stunned and dazed, while falling back down Scarlet retrieved her telescopic nightstick from her belt and extended it and when she got close enough she slammed it hard into Marvel's left shoulder.
"Ahhhhh!" Ms. Marvel hollered, as Scarlet landed and rolled away ready for the counterattack.
After a few seconds Ms. Marvel still hadn't attacked, she was just groaning in pain and holding a hand to her shoulder "Oh relax, I didn't break it. Besides you started this fight, not tough enough to finish it?" Scarlet smirked.
"I'm tougher than I look." Ms. Marvel panted, then her body began to grow soon enough she was thirty foot tall and a confident expression had returned to her face.
"Holy crap." Scarlet muttered, caught off guard by the sudden growth of her enemy, she figured that if she ran towards her friends then Ms. Marvel wouldn't step over in case she hurt her teammates.
Scarlet began to bolt towards Mage who was battling a green haired girl but was scooped up by two giant hand that clasped around her like ball "And you can stay in there until you calm down." Ms. Marvel grinned.
Scarlet let out a growl of frustration before a sneaky idea popped into her head, she pulled down her mask and bared her fangs "Let's see how long she can hold onto me."
Not far away Mage was trying to keep all his focus on the green haired girl he was fighting instead of whom his friends were battling, the Mage had just thrown a brace of sleeper cards at the green haired girl which she had easily glided out of the wave of when he asked "Hey, I don't mean to be rude but are you even a mammal?" He asked this due to his combatant's appearance; she was dressed in rather normal attire with denim skinny jeans and a green t shirt with three yellow diamonds in the centre but her physical body looked like something pulled out of a sci fi movie. The girl's seemed to lack any skin instead there was interlocking pink plates of metal where her skin should be, her hair was as green as leaves and her eyes were pupil-less and glowed a bright yellow just like the gem fixed onto her forehead.
"An odd question," The metal girl replied with ease as she threw a flurry of punches at Mage that the wolf tried to dodge "I'm a synthezoid, a non organic lifeform."
"You mean like a robot? Are all your team robots?" Mage enquired, circling his foe waiting for her to attack again.
"No, and don't call me a robot." The metal girl answered, sounding irked "If you have to label me then call me Viv."
"Ok, my bad. Here's a present to say I'm sorry." Mage grinned, swiftly throwing a few more sleeper cards only for all of them to faze through her body like she was made of thin air, he masked his surprise by smarming "Nice trick."
"You like tricks? Here's another one." Viv spoke before vanishing completely.
Mage expected Viv to charge at him while invisible but before she could land a hit he shouted "Evanescet!" The Mage's light bending and thermal dampening tech then made his disappear, he then quickly switched his custom domino mask to look for look for any electrical signals figuring that Viv's body was all electric seeing as she was artificial. Even though Viv was invisible to the naked eye her silhouette shone a bright green in the lenses of Mage's mask, the wolf then flicked out his tech manipulating wand from the sleave of his jacket and aimed it at Viv.
Viv stopped in her tracks and became visible against her will "What!?" she gasped.
Then the Mage waved the wand at Viv and she proceeded to punch herself in the face over and over while he was childishly chanting "Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself."
Across the other side of the parking lot Roar had managed to get his opponent into a head lock and kept him down on the ground "Listen, I don't know what you are, but we tried to be civil about this." Roar said gently.
"Get off me you damn cat!" The green skinned man snapped, punching the ribs of Roar but to no effect.
"You're stronger than a bull elephant, but that's not strong enough." Roar said, wondering how long he'd have to keep this weird looking creature restrained.
"Back before I was Brawn I would've owned your sorry ass!" Brawn snarled, trying his best to break free of the head lock to no avail.
"Brawn? Oh I get it, it's because you have muscles. Wait, so what were you before?" Roar asked, contemplating knocking out the aggressive green skinned man and helping out his friends.
"I was one of the Hulks!" Brawn shouted, expecting some sort of reaction out of the giant white lion.
"What in the world is a Hulk?" Roar asked, oblivious to the weight that title carried.
Fifteen feet away Bullet crashed to the tarmac of the parking lot with both her legs and paws bound by thick silver webbing, that was fired from the wrists of a figure in a black body suit and mask with a red spider web design over the top and a huge red spider symbol in the middle "You're fast for a fox, usually doesn't take that long for me to tie someone up." The masked man commented, sounding more intrigued than put out.
"Excuse you, I'm a h-hybrid thank you very much." Bullet corrected, still sounding hazy from the new smell overload.
"Are you drunk, Ma'am?" The masked man asked politely, hiding his need to chuckle at the canine gunslinger.
"No, it's j-just my senses are out of sync, I mean you smell s-super weird…what the heck are you anyway?" Bullet asked back, conscious of the fact that she was slurring her speech.
"You don't know who I am? I'm Spiderman…well one of them." Spiderman answered, assuming that that Bullet was from this earth "I mean my outfit is iconic."
"I'm blind." Bullet replied dryly, picking up the noise of Scarlet cursing and biting something "So you could be dressed in a pink t-tutu and I couldn't tell."
To an observer Yurei looked like she was swinging her 'Blue flamed' katana at nothing at all but it in actual fact she was striking to land a blow her opponent; a woman in red and black armour who had shrunk down to the size of an insect in the blink of an eye. "Merde!" Yurei swore as the armoured insect struck her chest, it felt like being shot, luckily she was wearing bullet proof armour.
"So what do I call you? Skull bunny?" The tiny armoured woman sniggered as she zipped around Yurei.
"I don't care what you call me, bug!" Yurei sassed, retrieving one of her hallucinogenic needles from her belt.
"It's Wasp, rabbit!" Wasp threw back as she flew by Yurei's face.
Yurei predicted Wasp's flight path and moved her paw ever so slightly so the pinpoint of her hallucinogen needle pricked Wasp's chin as she flew by "Ow!" Wasp yelped, quickly returning to her normal size and putting her hand to her chin "What did you just scratch me with?!"
"Funny, a Wasp who doesn't like to be stung." Yurei smiled under her mask, waiting for the psychotropic toxins to work their magic.
"Answer my ques-" Wasp began to demand before seeing a viper coiled around her arm "Oh my god!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, her eyes bulging with fear looking at the dozens of hissing snakes wrapped around her body "Get them off me!"
Yurei then sheathed her sword, grabbed a sleep dust capsule, crushed it in her hand while walking up to the freaked out Wasp before blowing it into her face. Wasp fell to the ground in a snoring heap "Fais de beaux reves." Yurei spoke, while studying the strange looking creature.
Above the battles on the ground Spitfire was soaring in the sky and in a dogfight with another mech, this one was a couple of feet shorter, a lot more streamlined and seemed skin tight with gold, claret and black armoured plating. Spitfire had just weaved out of the way out of the third barrage of mini missiles much to the frustration of the other mech "How do you keep avoiding my missiles!? They were locked onto you!" a female voice complained.
"Oh please, I worked out targeting scrambling when I was twelve." Spitfire bragged, boosting towards the other mech and grabbing her, both of them wrestling in the air.
The other mech was struggling against the strength of Spitfire when she read 'Spitfire 2.6' on her right shoulder poldron "Spitfire? That's what you call this steampunk wet dream?" The red, black and gold mech asked with a little laugh.
"Good one!" Spitfire cackled "And what about you? That suit of yours in a nanobot-weave, right? You pack a lot of punch for such a thin suit."
"The name's Iron Heart and I've taken out bigger rust buckets than you!" Iron Heart trash talked.
"Well then," Spitfire responded, before pulling her head back then headbutting Iron heart with so much force that when she hit the concrete it cracked around her "don't sign a cheque with your mouth that your arse can't cash, darling."
Back on the ground Andraste was having a little bit of a problem, her opponent wasn't in the mood for fighting, the girl with tattoos on her face and arms looked rather timid and nervous. She had been running at the archer and looked ready to fight but seemed to stop abruptly. Andraste had an arrow drawn and was ready to fire at the girl but it didn't feel right to fire at someone who wasn't attacking "Um, you doing ok over there?" Andraste asked, keeping her aim on the girl and doing her best to ignore the other fights around them.
"You smell like a fox." The girl answered, her nose scrunching with confusion.
"Well if I look like a fox and smell like a fox, I guess I'm a fox." Andraste laughed uncomfortably.
"So you're not a mutant or an inhuman?" The girl questioned, sounding surprised.
"What? Look I don't know what you're talking about but I'm a vixen, my name is Andraste." Andraste answered, contemplating whether or not she was being lulled into a false sense of security.
"Oh, I didn't introduce myself; I'm Amka. Wait, no, darn it, I mean Snowguard, my name is Snowguard." She fumbled her words, clearly nervous.
Andraste deduced from Snowguard's mannerisms and youthful voice she must've been young so she asked "Kid, how old are you?"
"I'm nearly fifteen." Snowguard answered quickly.
"God damn it, you're fourteen and a villain?" Andraste huffed, lowering her bow "Well no way I'm throwing hands with a kid."
"Stop calling me a kid." Snowguard pouted "And I'm not a bad guy, you are!"
"No, you are! You attacked us first!" Andraste argued.
"Because Viv said you were hacking government satellites!" Snowguard countered.
Andraste was about to argue back but realised there was no point, this Snowguard character and her friends were clearly not the enemy, she let out a tired sigh before proposing "Listen kid, if I stop my team mates, will you stop yours? Then we can have a proper conversation."
Snowguard contemplated the deal for a couple of seconds before nodding and saying "Ok."
Andraste then quickly retrieved her firework signal arrow from her quiver and shot it quickly into the air before hollering "Guys, hold fire!"
Snowguard responded by shouting "Champions, stop!"
It took a moment for the chaos to die down, but once it was quiet Andraste added loudly "We're going to parlay with these…things."
"We're called the Champions." Spiderman blustered, running over and crouching next to the unconscious Wasp while sniping at Yurei "What did you do to her?"
"Relax, she's just sleeping." Yurei eased, tossing the peeved Spiderman a vial of clear fluid "Place that under her nose and she'll awaken."
"Ow, ow, ow!" Ms Marvel groused, letting go of Scarlet and returning to her original size "Who the heck bites in a fight?"
Scarlet pulled her mask back up and replied sarcastically "Oh I'm sorry it's not every day I'm grabbed by a giant monster."
"Cool your jets Scarlet, we need to figure this mess out." Andraste reiterated, going over to the bound Bullet and cutting through the webbing with one of her daggers.
Soon enough everyone was gathered around with Team Ceartais and The Champions facing one another, mostly with looks of distrust "So which one of you is team leader?" Ms. Marvel questioned, stepping forward.
"That'd be me," Spitfire stepped forward, extending a huge mechanical hand for a shake "call me Spitfire, me and these mammals behind me are Team Ceartais."
Ms. Marvel shook Spitfire's hand despite still not trusting the mech "We're the Champions. I'm Ms. Marvel and these are Spiderman, Viv, Brawn, Iron Heart, Wasp and Snowguard." Pointing to each of her team mates.
"Well these guys are Roar, Andraste, Scarlet, Bullet, Yurei and The Mage." Spitfire introduced, motioning to each hero.
"Great now that introductions are done, we can cut to the chase;" Scarlet cut in "what the hell are you things?"
"Things? That's not nice." Snowguard mumbled, hiding behind Viv.
"Judging from their reactions I'd say they have never seen humans before." Viv hypothesised "Spiderman is it possible these animals are from the same universe as 'Spider-ham'?"
"I dunno', me and Spider-ham have only met a handful of times, his universe just had animal versions of everyone." Spiderman answered, looking at Team Ceartais with wonder.
"So what are you?" Scarlet asked again, with a bit more force.
"We're humans…well except Ms. Marvel and Viv. Big M is an inhuman and Viv's a synthezoid." Iron Heart clarified.
"Humans? Are you guys even mammals? I mean why have you only got fur on your heads?" Mage asked, ogling the strangers.
"Humans are mammals, just like you but-" Wasp started to answer but was cut off.
Roar covered his eyes and gasped "Why are those rats naked!?"
Everyone looked to where Roar had been looking to see two rats rifling through an garbage can that had been overturned in the fight "Ewwww, put some clothes on, you perverts!" Scarlet yelled at the rats.
"Um, why are you shouting at rats?" Snowguard asked, still sticking close to Viv.
"Wait…those rats, I think…I think they're savage." Andraste gawped, feeling uneasy.
"Impossible." Bullet reacted, stepping back.
"Savage? They're just eating old takeout." Brawn snorted.
"We mean they're not evolved," Andraste cleared up, still in a state of fear and amazement "looking at the way they're walking on all fours and the fact they're not speaking English is…disturbing."
"Of course rats don't speak English, they're rats, only humans can talk." Spiderman said, trying to figure out why the strange group of animals were acting so scared.
"Wait, wait, wait! Can Lions speak, or wolves, or rabbits?!" Roar asked, all flurstered.
"Uh, no…animals don't speak." Ms. Marvel cleared up, feeling bad for making her 'foes' feel worse.
"This…this is bad." Mage spoke, reeling from the revelation.
"Ok before this turns into a pity party, we need to know something, why the hell were you trying to hack government satellites?" Brawn brought the conversation back into focus albeit sounding aggressive.
"We didn't mean no harm, we were just hoping to find some clues to some kidnapped mammals." Spitfire answered, trying to remain calm.
"Kidnapped? So you didn't send those robots weren't carrying people, sorry, I mean humans?" Wasp asked, still sounding groggy from being woken up.
"No, there were two wolves, a flying fox, a donkey, a caracal and many others." Bullet implored, hoping the strange mammals would help "So you know about the robots?"
"Yes, four unidentified automatons appeared out of this rift over a week ago, eyewitness reports said they were carrying someone…we all assumed they were humans." Viv answered, cautiously.
"Listen Ms. Marvel, I know you have no reason to trust us but we just want to find these mammals and bring them home, we don't want to cause any hassle." Spitfire offered, keeping a level head despite looking at these strange new creatures known as 'Humans'.
Ms. Marvel contemplated this for a second before saying "Of course, and we'll help you."
"What!?" Brawn and Wasp snapped in unison.
"Even if they are from another dimension, those kidnapped animals are scared, don't they deserved to be rescued?" Ms. Marvel asked with authoritarian voice, obviously trying to stoke emotion in her team mates.
"You trust these animals? They could be telling us a pack of lies!" Brawn parried, crossing his arms across his chest.
"Well you made it hard for them to trust us after you charged in head first and took on the biggest guy on their team." Ms. Marvel criticised, to which Brawn snorted and turned his nose up.
"But what about that bunny? She made me see snakes!" Wasp brought up "She may be cute but she's the devil."
"Whoa!" All of Team Ceartais sounded, as if shocked by something.
"What?" Wasp shrugged.
"The 'C' word is really speciest, that's like one of the worst things you can say to mammals from rabbit families." Mage informed sounding despised, his eyes narrowing.
Andraste took a hold of her wife's paw and asked gently "Are you alright?"
"I'm ok, she most likely didn't know what she said was offensive." Yurei spoke pragmatically.
"Speciest? Is that like being racist?" Spiderman asked no one in particular.
"Like using the 'N' word against black people?" Viv assumed.
"Um, either way, sorry." Wasp quickly apologised.
"It is quite alright, I'm sorry for using my 'Nightmare' needles on you." Yurei bowed.
Suddenly the sound of propellers reached Bullet's ears, it was a sound she was most familiar with living in Zootopia, it was the sound of helicopters "Choppers approaching from the north!" Bullet informed.
"It's ok, it's just Coulson." Ms. Marvel waved off, as a trio of black military helicopters came into view.
"Who's Coulson?" Andraste asked with suspicion.
"Probably the one nice guy in the US government, he asked us to monitor the rift to see if anyone else came through." Ms. Marvel answered truthfully, figuring honesty would keep things civil between the two teams.
"Did he also tell you to attack us?" Mage accused.
"I do believe that was Brawn's idea." Vuv answered.
"Viv!" Brawn reacted, aghast much to Iron Heart's amusement.
The helicopters landed, whipping up winds with their loud engines, a lone man stepped forward from the closest helicopter; he was wearing a simple suit, he was a white man in his early fifties with receded and thinning brown hair but he walked with confidence as if he had done this sort of odd encounter many times before. Without even knowing who was the leader, he approached Spitfire and extended his hand and greeted "Good morning, I'm special agent Coulson of the strategic hazard intervention espionage logistics division."
"The what now?" Spitfire asked, shaking Coulson's hand.
"You can just call us SHIELD for short." Coulson smiled.
000
A pulsing headache. That was the first Clara noticed, she opened her eyes and was met with the uncomfortable sting of artificial light hitting her eyes "…ow." She quietly muttered, trying to remember what happened before she fell asleep…and then it hit her; the robots, the purple cloud, the tingling sensation in her arm, Zoe being grabbed and then, nothing.
"Z-Zoe." Clara gasped, struggling to see without her glasses.
"Oh god damn it." An annoyed voice huffed.
Clara turned and saw the outline of mammal, it had brown fur and was smaller than her "Who?" Clara croaked.
"Just so you know, you just lost me four pudding cups, I was betting you'd die." The annoyed mammal informed, handing Clara her glasses.
Clara put on her glasses with haste and looked at the figure, it was lynx, she wore plain green hoodie and baggy jeans with a set of headphones attached to her ears "W-where…" Clara began, put the pain in her head stopped her from talking.
"Welcome to hell, roomie." The Lynx replied dryly "Or like, hell's waiting room at least."
Clara sat up and looked around her, she was lying on the bottom bunk of bunk bed within what looked like a prison cell, she was still dressed in her clothes but a chunky bronze bracelet with two green LED lights was attached to her wrist "What is this?" Clara hissed, inspecting the bracelet on her wrist.
"Oh that's the must have fashion accessory in casa-de-misery." The Lynx said smarmily.
"I'm sorry, you are?" Clara asked, her head pulsating with pain.
"Esso and you're Clara Bloom." The Lynx grinned darkly.
"How did…" Clara began to ask, but stopped due to the ache in her cranium.
"You've got a security pass around your neck, genius." Esso sniggered "So where did they pick you up?"
"Who?" Clara began, trying to regain focus.
"The bots." A new voice asked.
Clara looked to the doorway to find a forlorn looking brown mare, dressed in a scruffy looking black dress "Y-you're Regina Lowell! One of the missing mammals." Clara yelled, before putting her paw to her head in pain and seething "Owww!"
"You know me?" Regina asked in surprise "…typical, I have to disappear to be noticed."
"Regina, stop." A gentle voice spoke, a slim framed Stag stepped out from behind the horse "Mammals care about you."
"You'd say that, Harper." Regina mumbled, shying away.
"Look, it nice to see that you're safe but I need to know one thing…" Clara struggled to ask.
"Oh, where you are?" Esso cut in, assuming Clara's question "We don't actually know but the robots call it the 'Cauldron'…spooky name, huh?"
"No, no! A bat, there was an Indian Flying Fox with me, her name is Zoe, have you seen her?" Clara forced, forcing herself to her feet.
"A bat?" Harper reacted "Sorry but you and some other mammals arrived today but there was no bats."
"Zoe…" Clara panted, holding herself up by the bunk ladder.
"So, what's your trick?" Regina asked in a reserve manner.
"Trick?" Clara asked back.
Regina waved her hoof and a small whirl of clear water spiralled around it "Yeah, your power. All of us who were taken have powers."
Clara looked at her paws and answered "I have no idea."
(AN/ What did you guys think? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Review! Next time on The Broken Mirror; The Team learn more about the Marvel universe, Clara tries to figure out where she is and Ceartais has to jump into action...AT THE UNITED NATIONS!?)