A/N: Okay, I have a feeling I know why there weren't many comments on the last chapter. I have a feeling that I ended the chapter at something of an awkward moment...too much set up, not enough of what my husband would call "butt kicking for goodness!" Hopefully, this chapter will make up for that...:-)
It's a good thing that this is a weekday, thought Natasha as she warily scanned the skies around Bryant Park. Hopefully enough people will stay in their buildings that we don't have to worry about many bystanders...Her hands were never far away from her sword, even though she kept the point of the blade down to try to make it less conspicuous. Still, the blade felt awkward in her hands, which did nothing to lessen her nerves. "Well, guys?" she asked the Guardians. "You see 'em?"
Ryan shook his head. "I can hear 'em, but they're still too far away..."
A vicious roar pierced the air, cancelling out Ryan's comments entirely. The small crowd of bystanders were in a panic, screaming at the top of their lungs as they scattered in every direction. Natasha tried to keep one eye to the skies while she turned her attention to Banner. "Bruce," she suggested warily, "now might be a good time for you to get angry..."
Ryan turned to fully face Banner, the memory of Banner's last 'test session' replaying through his mind in full detail. "Do you think you can do it, Bruce...?"
An unearthly grumbling growl replied to both comments. Natasha, Ryan and Esposito turned to find that they were no longer fighting alongside a meek scientist, but with a giant green monster that only bared a passing resemblance to their friend. "Bruce?" Ryan asked quietly, unsure of exactly who he was talking to.
The Hulk...smiled. "Yep, it's me."
Natasha's eyes widened with surprise. "Bruce?!" she exclaimed. "You're in there? You're in control now?!"
The Hulk's smile grew even wider. "Completely."
Ryan's smile grew to match the Hulk's...until the loud roar of a dragon halted all other thought. The group ducked and rolled away from the street, frantically dodging the flaming breath of the dragon's first pass.
The Hulk roared at the great beast, then took off after it. It took Banner less than a block to catch up to the dragon. He launched himself into the air, landed squarely on the beast's back and settled himself down in the space between the dragon's head and its powerful wings. The Hulk then grabbed onto the dragon's head, using the leverage of his position to steer the beast so that it would crash-land into the abandoned cars of Sixth Avenue...
...before snapping the dragon's neck.
Ryan found himself smiling as he ran to catch up to the Hulk as he let out a celebratory roar of triumph over his victory. "Having fun there, Bruce?"
"OH, YEAH!" Banner roared, enjoying his victory.
"Think you can repeat that a few more times?" asked Ryan.
"You bet," the Hulk replied.
Ryan chuckled as he turned back to Natasha and his partner. "Just don't smash up too much of the city in the process..."
#
Pepper finally stopped screaming by the time she and Stark leveled off at a reasonable hovering altitude. "What the hell was THAT?!" exclaimed Pepper.
"Sorry," Stark apologized...shortly after the ringing in his ears stopped. "I probably should have explained..."
"Explained *what*?"
"Those training wheels I was talking about? An altimeter and proximity tether." His tone tried to sound light and apologetic at the same time. "So you don't go flying off into space without me there to bring you back to Earth..."
Pepper smiled, which Stark noticed in a small window on his display. "I thought that was supposed to be *my* job," she insisted.
"Not today," countered Stark, briefly matching his girlfriend's smile.
"So how do you want to play this?" asked Pepper.
A cacophony of howling shrieks caught the couple's attention. Three dragons were barreling down on their position with impressive speed. "Castle was nice enough to give us these sharp swords," Stark suggested as he pulled the sword off of his temporarily magnetized back, "We should probably take advantage."
Pepper, whose sword had never left her hands, nodded. "Tony, if these things shoot fire at us..."
"Your suit should be able to withstand one direct assault, Miss Potts," Jarvis chimed in, "but I would strongly advise against either of you taking more than one."
"Duly noted," Stark agreed grimly. "Let's do this."
Stark and Pepper flew head-on toward the first dragon...Pepper holding her sword like her life were dependent on its success. She took a deep breath, lifted the sword over her head as the dragon flew underneath her..."Dammit," she cursed as the sword's swing scraped along the back of the beast. "Missed."
"Get ready for another try," Stark told her. Pepper reared back, stopped by her proximity tether as Stark halted mid-air. Iron Man stared down the dragon as it swung around for another pass, raised his free arm, and fired. The repulsor blast hit the dragon square in the snout, causing it to freeze and rear up mid-air.
This time, Pepper didn't miss.
The dragon's head separated cleanly from its body after one solid swing and tumbled down through the clouds. Stark and Pepper watched as the rest of the beast glided for a moment before taking a nose-dive after its head. "Well one thing's for sure," Stark joked as he watched the separated parts shrink from their view, "that's the last thing he's ever going to get into head first..."
Stark didn't need the view on his display to know that Pepper was rolling her eyes at him...but the roar of a second dragon and the flapping of giant leathery wings stopped her from reacting to his comment. "One down, two to go," said Pepper. "Shall we?"
The man in the iron suit didn't need to be asked twice.
#
When Steve first saw that his 'uniform' included a shield along with his gun, he had thought, back then, that Stark was out of his mind. If he was supposed to be some super-powerful super-soldier, then what the hell did he need with a shield when all he had to fight off was bullets?
Today, though...today he had never been more grateful for his shield. The fight with the dragon was not going well. His shield, he thought, was supposed to have an edge that was sharp enough to go through steel. He had even used it to chop down trees. More than once.
But every time he attacked the dragon with his shield, it just deflected off of its scales like the things were made of adamantium. Every single time. What in God's name is that thing made of? he wondered. The weight of the sword felt heavy on his back, but he had never used one before, and, well, if his shield couldn't do the job...
The dragon landed in front of Steve on Seventh Avenue, crushing at least a half-dozen abandoned cars from the impact. Steve hurled his shield at the beast, only to watch, helplessly, as the metal deflected off the dragon's chest without making an impact. The dragon, in turn, swatted at its bothersome pest...sending Steve flying into the side of a nearby building before crashing onto the sidewalk. A shot of terror ripped through Steve's shaken system as the dragon's head loomed large over his own. It wasn't hard for him to know what was going to come next. He closed his eyes and tensed up, hoping that the heat of the fire would be intense enough to take him quickly...
Steve frowned as the roar of the fire blasted across his eardrums...but he felt no heat. He opened his eyes and saw flames, but they were at an easy arm's length away. Something, it seemed, was protecting him from the breath of the dragon that was so determined to take his life.
Something, it seemed, that felt very much like a shield.
He propped himself up on his elbows and was looking up in the dragon's direction when the cascading inferno around him suddenly stopped. Steve looked up to find that the dragon's head was now twitching violently from an attack that he could not have caused.
The shield dissipated as the dragon flew away from the new danger it was facing, and once the beast was gone, Steve discovered he was looking at the one face that flashed before his eyes when he thought he was facing his last moments...and, now that the danger had passed, the last face he expected to see in the heat of battle. "Alexis?! What in God's name are you doing here?"
"The spell called me," Alexis replied to Steve's question even as she kept a cautious eye on the skies, watching for the dragon's potential return.
"The spell?"
"That 'experiment' I cast just before you left? It was a protection spell." When Steve's only response was to frown in confusion, Alexis explained, "my plan was that if you ever got into trouble you couldn't get out of on your own, that the spell would let me know you were and shield you until I could get to you."
Steve couldn't resist the joke. "So you could save your damsel in distress?"
It was only then that Alexis allowed herself a small smile. "Someone has to." The smile vanished, though, almost as quickly as it formed. "Heads up, babe. We've got incoming."
The couple looked up and rolled out of the way as the dragon that Alexis had chased off came barreling back down Seventh Avenue breathing fire and gunning for them both. Lightning flew from Alexis' hands, causing the dragon to spasm and twitch above their heads before crashing into the street between them and sending cars flying in its place.
Steve stood at the edge of the crater, looking down at the dragon that Alexis had just defeated. He shook his head and chuckled in amazement. "Honey," Steve tried to joke, "remind me never to get on your bad..."
The joke died off as the dragon woke up with a deafening roar. Steve backed away from the crater, sprinting around to instinctively try to protect his girlfriend. He was so worried about protecting Alexis, in fact, that he almost didn't notice the two lighting-fast swordsmen who jumped into the crater, ran up the back of the incapacitated dragon, and finally ended the creature's life by skewering the beast through the top of its head with their swords.
When the dragon had finally breathed its last, Steve finally recognized the couple who had so quickly jumped in and saved their lives. Recognition, however, did nothing to dampen his surprise at seeing them. "Angel? Phoenix? What are you two doing here?"
"Crusher asked us to come along," replied Fallon, referring to Alexis' 'Network' code name.
"Wizards cannot use their abilities to kill..." chimed in Katya.
Steve gasped as the surprise over Katya's comment hit him full force. "Wizards can't kill?"
Fallon shook his head. "Nope. It's a major part of the legend. The Sìfāng is a shield, not a sword..."
The connection Fallon's explanation make within Steve's mind spurred him on with a new sense of urgency. "Lex...we gotta get to your dad. He went after Lóng zhǔ."
Alexis' face paled with shock. "Alone?!" Steve nodded. "It was his idea, wasn't it?" When Steve nodded again, Alexis' shock turned to anger. "If he doesn't stop doing this, so help me, I'll kill him..."
"But you can't..." Steve countered, remembering what he had just been told.
"I could find a way," grumbled Alexis. "Trust me..."
Fallon watched Steve and Alexis chase off after his shield and her father when the roar of another dragon caught his attention. He pulled his sword out of the head of the dead dragon's corpse as he turned to his fiancée. "Well, Kat? Up for a little more dragon hunting?"
Katya's eyes sparkled as her smile grew wide enough to show her fangs. "Aren't I always?"
#
Well? Does this make up for the last chapter? I've got one more chapter of battle planned. How's it going so far?