The Red Skull Arena

PenPatronus

Chapter 24

Red Circus

Loki roared, leapt into the stands, and tackled the Red Skull. Just then, a vertical hurricane appeared in the center of the arena. Led by Falcon and War Machine, dozens of Iron Man suits burst from the wormhole like a swarm of bees. The entire coliseum panicked and either reached for their guns or rushed towards the exits. Bodies started moving—running in every direction. Screams. Gunshots. A Hydra agent fell out of the stands and broke his neck when he landed at Clint's boots. Wanda Maximoff stepped through and cured Cap and Thor with a blast of red light. The two Avengers collapsed. Barton rolled out from under them and together, he and Wanda dragged them to the sidelines where Stark was waking up, dazed. Wanda held her magic over them like an umbrella, shielding the Avengers from bullets.

Figures dropped from the ceiling—Romanoff, Barnes, and Hill. Natasha greeted Clint with a kiss on the lips, and then dropped a bow and arrow in his lap and handed guns to the rest of them. Bucky helped a severely stunned Steve stand up, and then backed away when the fire under his skin threatened to burn everyone in the circle. Clint spotted Rumlow charging at them and he fired a bolt straight through his heart. Crossbones disappeared under a sudden herd of circus animals. The prison doors opened and dozens of zebras, camels, and horses stampeded into the scene. A very disheveled clown followed the pack, screaming hysterically and throwing juggling balls at Hydra agents. After the circus animals came a pair of women—undoubtedly two of Strucker's Enhanced—who lifted one of the dead Hammer drones and used it like a battering ram to open the double doors into the rest of the base.

Right then, the Hammer came home. Mjolnir busted through the ceiling like a meteorite. Thor instantly called down lightning from the new hole in roof, but instead of throwing it at a bad guy, he cast it into Banner. The surge overloaded the device in Bruce's chest, and he woke up, gasping. A blur of blue that had to be Pietro Maximoff scooped up Banner and carried him over.

Stark had the look of a man not convinced that it wasn't all a dream. "Bruce?"

Banner swayed on his feet. "I'm here," he gasped. "We're both here." He flinched as gunfire rained down on Wanda's shield. War Machine and Falcon dive-bombed the shooters. "What do we need the Other Guy to do?"

Natasha pointed at the ceiling. "We need an exit," she said. "Smash!"

Hulk appeared in a blink. Boulder-teeth flashed as he grinned, and jumped.

Strucker led an exodus of Hydra agents through the prison. Three tunnels branched off from the far end of the room and he sent troops down each of them. "Get the mines in the air!" he ordered first in English, and then in German. "Deploy the super-tank at my command. There has to be a Helicarrier in the area—find it!"

Hill shrugged a backpack off her shoulders and started handing out what looked like pairs of interwoven seatbelts. When Stark took too long studying his harness, she ripped it out of his hands and started attaching it to his legs and torso herself. Once Tony realized what she was doing, he grabbed both of her hands and said, "Oh, hell no, I'm not leaving!"

Straight up above them, thanks to the efforts of the Hulk and the SHIELD agents in the Iron Man suits, there was a hole large enough through the arena, the base, and the elementary school for them to see the SHIELD helicopters hovering above the scene.

"Tony, our mission is to extract the Avengers!" Hill hollered over the din. "We have to get you to safety!"

"Red Skull is here!" Steve reminded them.

"And Loki!" said Thor.

Tony started to add on, but suddenly everyone's eyes were drawn upwards. One of the helicopters exploded in a fireball that rained comets of lava across the whole city block. The others, three of which had already dropped down ropes to extract people, immediately scattered. Wanda's shield failed under the barrage of cement and fire. Guns fired from the other side of the arena, but Falcon swooped in and blocked them with his wings.

War Machine dropped into the sand. Rhodey flipped up his visor and took Tony's arm. "This whole base is going to collapse!" he reported. Over his coms he ordered the Iron swarm, "Grab a warm body and evac to the rendezvous point—NOW!" Before Stark could protest, Rhodes wrapped his arms around him and shot straight up into the air.

"FIRE!" Strucker spat from the bridge of the super-tank. Another helicopter fell, and then a third. The fourth swerved just in time to dodge a missile. "Move forward!" Strucker shouted at the agents manning the tank's terminals. "Find that Helicarrier!"

From a bird's eye view, one-third of the city of Warsaw appeared to flip open like the unhinged jaw of a gigantic sea creature. A ramp ascended from the rear of the Hydra base and the enormous tank lumbered out of the ground on a thousand wheels. The massive machine was twice the size of a Helicarrier—practically a small town inside of a Vibranium hull. Hundreds of Hitler's Landkreuzer Ratte tanks could've fit inside it. The remaining helicopters scattered like seagulls away from a grumpy whale.

"Herr Strucker," one lieutenant called, "if there is a Helicarrier within a hundred miles, it must be in stealth mode."

Strucker cursed. Both fists slammed into the armrests of his chair. "Turn the guns on the arena," he said. "I want the entire base DESTROYED!"

"Sir! I have almost a hundred bogeys going north!" Strucker turned to the opposite side to see a sergeant pointing at a screen that showed blips on a radar. "Stark's men. They're flying out of the arena!"

Strucker took a closer look. Thin lips flattened into a satisfied smile. He zoomed in close and watched as someone in an Iron Man suit carried Barton into the air. The bowman shifted in the suit's grasp so that he could send arrows down at Hydra agents. "Pick them off. Shoot them out of the sky!" Strucker ordered. "ALL OF THEM!"

To Be Continued