I dove after them, latching my grip onto the flaming wing and pulling up, in an effort to slow them down. I paid no mind to the pieces of metal gashing my arms, as well as the rubble when we slammed into the side of a building, and leaving bloody trails. We came to a crashing halt as the jet slid across the ground, that had come up so quickly.
The jet loading doors came open and all three of the heroes walked out with their respective weapons. I dropped to the ground beside them and looked at the blood dripping off my fingertips.
"Ow," I stated blandly before following the three others to run towards the tower.
"We got to get back up there," I heard Cap yelling as I focused on my arms at the same time as focusing on the ground I was running on.
"Really, Sherlock?" I ground out.
There were many people running but they were running in the opposite direction as us crazy people in weird clothes. They were screaming too.
We stared at the portal as a giant creature that kind of resembled a trilobite mixed with a dragon the size of a skyscraper burst from the pulsing blue energy. It roared like a dragon as it came through.
"Shit," I mumbled.
The creature flew, surprisingly agile, down uncomfortably close to the ground and overhead. As it flew past us Chitauri soldiers shot out of compartments in its armor and landed on and in the buildings.
"Stark, you seeing this?" Cap said from next to me.
I stared down at my sword and smiled softly as it warped and changed into duel daggers, one in each hand.
"Seeing. Still working on believing." Tony's voice rang through the comm, sounding out of breath already. "Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"
I smiled distractedly at Tony's genius, not that I'd ever tell him that, no one needs to stroke that ego.
"Banner?" Steve asked, thoroughly confused.
"Just keep me posted."
I looked up at the sky and saw Tony flying a little distance from the creature-battle ship-thing. I jumped off the ground, twirling and pointing my daggers out so the blades pointed at the Chitauri now flanking me. A bolt of blood red light shot out of the tips of the blades and shot right through their heads. The flying things that they rode on spun and slammed into several others, exploding.
I leveled off right by a building that seemed to be crawling with both Chitauri and humans. I simply dropped through the skylight and landed behind the Chitauri circling the people.
"Ello," I said, catching the soldier's attention, not to mention the people.
It growled and raised its weapon to point at my chest.
"Not very nice," I growled, my teeth turning to fangs. I raised my daggers from their position at my sides and showed them to him. He grunted, unimpressed. The daggers melted without heat and molded around my hands before coming to the insides of my hands. The black metal twisted until they had become Bagh Naka (Indian tiger claws, look it up) with huge blades that curved five or six inches past my fingertips. With one twist, all the Chitauri's throats were torn out.
"Hide in the basement," I growled at the people. After they nodded I ran out of the building.
I quickly found the rest of the Avengers, minus Tony and Bruce of course, on a destroyed bridge.
"What's the story upstairs?" Cap asked as I landed beside him and Thor.
"The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable," Thor stated, giving me a quick glance.
"Thor's right. We gotta deal with these guys." Stark stated over comm.
I shook my hands as the Bagh Naka melted and reestablished itself in the sheath as a sword again. I walked over to stand by Clint.
"How do we do this?" Natasha asked, her voice sounding nervous to me (and probably Clint) because I knew what her emotions sounded like.
"As a team," Cap was ever the soldier.
"I have unfinished business with Loki," Great job Thunder brain, haven't you noticed that most of us do?
"Yeah? Get in line." Clint grumbled as he screwed on arrow heads.
"Aye," I snarled, my eyes turning Drake purple.
"Save it," Soldier boy walked towards us, all sparkles and spangles. "Loki's going to keep this fight focused on us, and that's what we need." Spangles walked past, looking up before turning back to look at all four of us. "Without him, these things could run wild. We got Stark up top. He's going to need us to…"
A low rumbling caused us all to look. Here came Bruce, calmly sitting on an old motorcycle through the rubble and the burning cars. He stopped and propped the old thing against an upside down car and walk towards us as we walked towards him.
"So," Banner threw his hands out to gesture around us. "This all seems horrible."
"I've seen worse," Natasha spoke up from her stopped position beside me.
"Sorry," Banner looked a little constipated as he said that.
"No, we could use a little worse."
I waved my hands around a little "I could break out my Drakey mojo."
Natasha glanced at me with a strange expression "Okay then."
"Stark, we got him," Cap spoke into his comm link.
"Banner?" Tony's disembodied voice rang out from the comm.
"Just like you said."
"Then tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you."
"Oh, shit," I groaned, covering my face.
Suddenly, Tony rounded the corner of a building quite about a mile away. A second later a trilobite-thing cut right through said building, showering glass and rubble on the street below.
Everybody got a very aware expression while Thor growled and twisted his hammer.
"I-I," Natasha stumbled in her speaking "don't see how that's a party."
As the creature and Tony approached, I felt Drake pushing her way to the surface but not escaping. The creature scraped its belly against the ground, roaring and gnashing its teeth as it caused cars to be thrown aside and explode in its wake.
Banner started walking in the direction of the creature but Cap's voice made him momentarily pause.
"Doctor Banner, Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."
Banner kept on walking, slower now, and looked over his shoulder "That's my secret, Captain." He glanced back at the creature that couldn't have been more than a couple blocks from us now. He finally stopped and looked back at us, looking Cap in the eye "I'm always angry." With that, he twisted away, transforming in size and skin color as he did. His shirt stretched and fell in tatters to the ground.
As he finished transforming, he swung his fist into the creature's head, letting out a feral growl. The creature's head and armor collapsed under the brute strength of the Hulk, merely causing him to slide back. While its head quit moving, its body continued on into an arc stretching high over our heads, popping and grinding and sparking and stretching as it went.
"Hold on!" I heard Tony yell through the comm, over the metal grinding noises and the creature's dying roars.
Small missiles shot from Tony's outstretched arm, into the exposed flesh of the beast. The others took shelter as the creature exploded; Clint behind an overturned car, Thor just crouching and raising his hammer over his head, and Cap shielding himself and Natasha with his circular weapon of hope and such. I merely stood there, allowing the fire, flesh, and armor to rain around me, but never touching me thanks to the black and purple dome I created above myself and Cap and Natasha, making Cap's shield obsolete.
The Chitauri around halted their assault to turn to us, screeching and screaming in their strange language. They all tore off their masks, revealing deformed faces unlike any human or animal I had seen on Earth or my own planet.
Hulk gave his own roar in return and I let out one of my own, nearly matching Hulk's in volume. Around me, everyone was readying, so I twirled my sword in hand with an odd smile.
More of the trilobite creatures came from the portal with more soldiers around them.
"Guys," I said, as Natasha and I were the only ones facing the portal.
Everyone turned to look and I could feel their auras quake with fear.
"Call it, Captain," Tony said, his voice strangely steady.
"Alright, listen up," Cap began. "Until we can close that portal, out priority is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof." He pointed towards a roof. "Eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark and Vivian, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out," he was talking with his fingers now as well "you turn it back or you turn it to ash."
"Can you give me a lift?" Clint asked Tony.
Tony's metal head bobbed and he started moving towards Clint "Right. Better clench up, Legolas." The two shot up into the sky just as Tony got a grip of Clint.
I nodded and jumped into Hulk's outstretched hand. He shoved his hand up, vaulting me high into the sky. As I flew through the air, still keeping my wings closed, I let out a roar. I snapped my wings open and flew off into battle, not catching the rest of what Cap said.
In the distance behind me, I could see Hulk smashing every Chitauri in sight. Above, Thor was already lighting up the sky and the empire state building with his lightning before shooting it straight at the portal, causing many Chitauri to explode and several trilobite creatures to be pushed back through the portal before exploding themselves.
Below I saw a group of civilians surrounded by Chitauri soldiers. I snapped my wings closed and dived, head first, straight at them. I snapped my wings open just above and landed facing the civilians and having my back to the Chitauri. I slowly turned around, allowing my sword to change shape until it was two steel blade fighting fans. I twisted the fans and swiped them across the Chitauri's arms, cutting them open and forcing them to drop their weapons. I side kicked one in the head and threw a fan at another, cutting off his head but imbedding the fan into a nearby wall. I threw the other fan, which imbedded itself into a Chitauri's stomach, and raised my hands in the directions of the two weapons. The two fans seemed to melt and jumped onto my arms, wrapping into my hands and solidifying into hand guns. I fired off a couple quick shots and the rest of the Chitauri surrounding were down for the count.
I turned around to look at the people behind me, turning my guns back into a sword and sheathing it.
"Get inside a building, get off the streets and stay below eyesight," I instructed before taking off again and circling overhead until I saw them go into a building.
"Stark, you've got a lot of strays sniffing your tail," I heard Clint's voice over the comm.
"I'm just trying to keep them off the streets," Tony responded, his voice strained.
"Well, they can't bank worth a damn. So find a tight corner."
"I'm on my way to help, Stark." I said, turning to shoot off in his direction.
"I will roger that. And hurry up Vivian." Tony said.
I saw Clint out of the corner of my eye as I gained on Tony. I noted his severely depleted quiver.
Tony stalled on a corner and shot a Chitauri as it passed him and took off again when the others caught up. But that gave me enough time to catch up and I landed on a Chitauri's back, digging my claws into its spine and breathing fire across the machine they were riding on. It overheated and I jumped off and started to fly away just as it exploded. I did this several times while the Chitauri were chasing Tony but flew away as he only had a few left.
When he was finished I heard him talking to Clint but tuned them out, chasing and killing Chitauri everywhere, rescuing some civilians as I went. As I flew, I saw Natasha on a Chitauri's back as it shot through the air. She seemed to be guiding it with blades in her hands. I chuckled and kept fighting.
All of a sudden, as I flew behind Hulk and Thor on a trilobite, a searing pain hit my back and I was sent falling to the ground. I looked over my shoulder to see one of my wings was split between two groups of the support bones all the way up to the bones across the top of my wings and my sheath was gone. Above, Loki flew by on one of the Chitauri flying machines. One of the blade-like things on the bottom of the flying thing was stained with blood, my blood.
I tried to stand but fell back to my knees, blood pouring from the wound.
"I'm down, guys," I said over the comm, looking up at Clint, who was on a building nearby.
"Get up and keep going, that's what you taught us, remember." Clint responded, his voice hard and commanding.
I gritted my teeth but smiled and forced myself to my feet "Don't know how well I'll fly, though." I paused and looked at my wing for a second before waving a hand over it and allowing my magic to collect over the split so that it held my wing together. It was crude and I was still bleeding through it but it would have to do.
I took off back into the sky and resumed beating up Chitauri. But things began to seem hopeless as I saw the others in various states of almost defeat, other than Natasha. I was bleeding out as I went and was beginning to lose altitude. My magic, holding my wing together, was failing due to the blood loss and fatigue that came with it.
I heard Tony and Fury talking over the comm about a missile coming in. I felt a tear roll down my cheek as I hit the ground again. I rolled over onto my back and watched Tony fly by above. I stood again and kicked an approaching Chitauri in the head and took off again. I shot my magic left and right, despite its weakness, as I flew up as far as I could go. When I reached that altitude I glided, still shooting magic at any Chitauri within range.
"I can do it, I can shut the portal down." I heard Natasha say over the comm.
"Do it!" Cap yelled.
"No, wait," Tony's voice interrupted.
"Stark, these things are still coming," Cap half pleaded.
"I got a nuke coming in. It's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it."
Far away, I saw Tony latched onto the bottom of the nuke as it flew towards the city. I looked from the sword in my hand to Tony and the nuke, and then threw my sword, letting it fly and fall into Central Park. I flew at Tony, far out above the water until he got close. As Tony passed by me, pushing the nuke up towards the portal, I flew after. I settled above the nuke, digging my claws into the metal to find a hand hold and helping Tony push.
"Stark, Vivian, you know that's a one way trip," I heard Cap say.
There was a click as Tony shut off his comm and I heard him talking faintly but couldn't make out what he was saying through the helmet.
"Only for me, Steve," I responded before taking out my own comm and throwing it into the water below.
We approached the tower and began our assent towards the portal. We shot up like a giant bullet towards the blue light and passed through it into darkness. The only light around us came from the portal behind, the stars light years away, and the mass of moving metal, like a ship, in front of us.
I heard Tony's suit sputter out of life and twisted myself so was underneath the missile as well. I released one hand to give Tony a sharp push towards the portal and watched him fall towards it. Then I turned away to keep the missile on its track towards the ship. I finally released it when I was only a hundred meters from the ship and turned to watch the portal, fully knowing I wouldn't make it there in time to get through.
I felt the explosion at my back and the last thing I saw before vanishing into the wall of fire, was Tony falling back through the portal and it closing behind him.
For the first time since my home world died, I felt at peace.
Second to last Chapter. *Tear* It seems like it was yesterday that I started writing this story. Oh, and its okay... there will be a sequal. Bye for now!