If you have exams this week, I hope you're doing better than I am.
So take your break and read this!
They spent much of the short journey in silence; usually Steve would be talking battle plans, but seeing as the end goal was to stop Rain, he knew that it would be at any means necessary and couldn't bring himself to say it in front of Rachel, knowing that she would only think that he meant by death. When they reached Chicago, Natasha and Clint got the first bird's eye view of Raina's destruction. All of the buildings surrounding Willis Tower were damaged. None of them had intact windows anymore; they had all been blown out by Raina. Some of them had been caught in the blast of one of her fire laden cyclones.
Clint, who was no stranger to destruction, found himself gaping at the buildings, some of which were twisted with the heat from Raina's cyclones. As he flew the Quinjet closer to the building, Raina quickly noticed, sending a wind powered fireball towards it, forcing Clint to violently swerve the Quinjet to avoid it getting hit.
"I thought you knew how to fly one of these things!" Gwen shouted at Clint after she fell into the floor.
"I do and it's why you're still alive," he countered angrily.
"We need a distraction," Steve said, looking pointedly at Tony, who nodded, moving to the back of the jet and jumping out.
Clint watched as Tony and Thor, who had suddenly shown up, forced Raina to look the other way, giving Clint enough time to land the jet behind her. As they ran out of the jet, the group was knocked down by a sudden burst of wind; Raina had turned and noticed them.
"Hey short stuff, that the best you got?" Tony shouted at Raina trying to get her attention once again.
"How dare you mock me?! I'm more powerful than all of you combined!" Raina growled, summoning a seven foot tall twister and sending it towards Tony.
"Shit!" Tony flew to the side, barely dodging it and almost getting pulled into it. Raina smiled as she watched all the chaos she was causing.
"Rain! Stop this! Look at all the damage you're causing, all the lives you're putting at risk!" Natasha attempted to jar her out of the mind control.
"Besides, you're surrounded. You can't take us all on at once." Clint gloated. Raina glanced around. It was true, she was surrounded. The whole of the Avengers, including a hulked-out Bruce, Rachel, Gwen, and Loki stood all around her in a circle, ready to attack at any moment.
"Come on kid, come back to us! This is not you!" Rachel attempted next. Raina merely glared at Rachel before turning her attention to Loki as he spoke up next.
"Rain, please." Loki begged. Their eyes locked and Loki watched in high hopes as Raina's eyes turned back to a pure stormy-gray colour for a few seconds before returning to the corrupted red-gray mix that was filled with anger.
"Liar, all of you are liars!" Raina screamed as she gritted her teeth. "You merely stand there and pretend to know me with your faux smiles. None of you have any idea who I truly am." The Avengers readied themselves as Raina raised her arms to prepare another attack. Her trench coat was suddenly blown open by all the wind, Raina reached inside and pulled out some of her knives. "Let's see how good you are at playing catch." She wore a twisted evil smirk on her face as she threw nearly two dozen to the group that surrounded her. Clint and Natasha easily dodged some, while Steve raised his shield to cover Rachel and himself. Hulk let out a roar as some of the knives flew past him, cutting him as he stood in front of Gwen as a shield. Thor and Loki attempted to dodge but were barely grazed as the knives flew past them. Tony grunted in pain as he pulled out a knife that got lodged in his shoulder plate.
Raina attempted to attack them with more knives, but to no avail. Rachel used her powers to stop the knives from advancing on them.
"Rain stop this now!" Rachel shouted.
Raina tried pushing the knives forward, aiming all of them towards Rachel.
"Stop pretending to care!"
Rachel held her ground and pushed the knives further back.
"I'm not pretending! If I didn't care, I'd just let them kill you now!" Rachel screamed, not noticing the glare she was getting from Loki and the betrayed faces of the Avengers and Gwen.
"Stop lying!" Raina screamed, stepping forward, putting more effort into pushing the knives at Rachel and forcing Rae to take a step back, "All you ever said was that I was a burden to you! I was the child and I made you grow up and I couldn't take care of myself and you didn't need kids because you'd always be taking care of me! You said that!"
"Loki, Thor, Tony, can you subdue her?" Steve asked trying to quickly think up a strategy as he watched the knives get closer to Rachel, fearing for her safety, but unable to do anything other than watch. He was afraid that, because of her desire to save Rain and not hurt her in the process, Rachel was going to be the one to get hurt. Any response that the group could have come up with was cut off by Rachel screaming back at Raina.
"I only said those things when you had pushed me to the breaking point!" Rachel screamed, her anger bubbling over, "If I didn't care, I would've thrown you out the first time that you moved all of the furniture in our house two inches to the left!" Rachel regained the ground that she had lost and then took control of the knives as Rain's eyes changed back to their normal colour for a moment. Rachel sent the knives flying into a nearby building, her anger causing them to be lodged to the hilt. As soon as they were out of the vicinity, Rachel felt all of her anger dissipate.
"Rae," Raina sobbed, dropping to her knees.
Rachel started to run to Rain, but stopped when she saw Raina's eyes cloud over again, the red overpowering any other colour that existed in Raina's irises.
"Stop. Lying. To. Me!" Raina screamed with a new-found hatred. She raised her hands, but paused as green smoke appeared next to her and quickly formed into the shape of a person.
"I'm in the middle of something Amora, how dare you interrupt me!"
"In the middle of playing with your toys? The master has much bigger plans." Amora smoothly responded. Raina let out a low growl, but lowered her hands; the weather almost immediately cleared up.
"Fine." She muttered.
"Rain no!" Loki shouted, but to no avail as the Enchantress teleported both Raina and herself away. His hands balled into fists as they began to glow a dark-green. "I won't allow Amora to take Rain from me!" Loki raised a hand to the level of his head as he began to teleport himself away. Rachel stepped towards him and grabbed him.
"There's no way you're going without me!"
The pair of them disappeared, leaving the Avengers and Gwen standing of the roof of Willis tower.
"Great, how are we supposed to follow now?" Tony yelled in frustration.
"Curse your impatience Loki," Thor said, more to himself.
"Can't you follow them?" Gwen asked Thor quickly.
Thor looked over to Gwen and nodded slowly, "But it will not be with the precision and smoothness that Loki possesses."
"Then let's stop talking and go," Steve urged, nodding to Thor. The group inched in closer to Thor, who in turn began to swing his hammer around in his hand. A dark cloud began to form over the top of the tower, the air getting thick and smelling heavily of ozone. Suddenly, a large bolt of lightning struck the top of the building right where the group stood. After the flash of the lightning disappeared, the rooftop was void of people.
That wasn't exactly relaxing but hopefully it took your mind off things.
Good luck on exams, whenever they are for you.
~Jade
