My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including Marianne Silver, goldenpuon, mythwriter, GhibliGirl91, Qweb, Jelsemium, Courtney, WantFanFics, Penny Tortoiseshell, gryffindorgal87, Beloved Daughter, Adamantium Rose, Katya Jade, Mystewitch, and Arrows the Wolf.
Special thanks to Adamantium Rose, who caught some typos…
And now … drum roll … a chapter with a plot bunny that's been hopping around in my head since Chapter 7…
Thanks for reading!
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Chapter 50
Smoke and sulfur stung Steve's eyes as he half crawled, half walked down the narrow pathway Washington had followed earlier to an unknown fate. Yasur grumbled like a dog protecting its bone, sparks stinging his face wherever there was bare flesh. He used his shield like an umbrella, shielding his head from the heat of the three erupting vents spewing lava into the air like a pot of spaghetti sauce forgotten on the stove too long to boil.
"Washington!" Steve shouted. "Hang on, buddy! I'm on my way to get you!"
It was impossible to tell whether the sound coming from beneath the overhang was Washington calling for help, or simply part of the general rumble of the volcano. There were three vents on the caldera floor, puffing smoke, pumice, and the occasional fountain of molten lava, as well as a newer crack that was too even to be natural. Some sort of lid? Steve suspended his sense of disbelief and focused what he'd come down here to do. Bring home the last man, whether dead or alive.
Another eruption shook the caldera, almost causing him to lose his footing and go tumbling into the nearest vent. He threw himself against the unstable ash, covering his face with the shield just in time to avoid a face full of lava. A football-sized glop of molten rock plopped onto his thigh and molded around it, neither liquid nor solid. Oh god! It burned! He screamed in pain as he used the shield like a spatula to scrape it off of his leg. Thank god for Tony Stark and his pansy joke of a uniform! The skin underneath was a bit cooked, but the magma hadn't burned all the way through the armor.
"Thank you, Tony Stark," Steve shouted to the sky. "I swear if I get myself out of this mess I'll cut you a little slack.
The blowhole died down, gearing up for another blast. Steve threw himself beneath the under hang Washington had disappeared into without looking, barely avoiding Yasur's next fiery breath as the god of fire made its displeasure known. He rolled and landed partway on his feet, nursing the burned leg beneath the armor.
And just barely missed being decapitated by a gigantic claw…
"Crap!" Steve shouted. Only years of experience in the Army dodging grenades and enemy mortar shells saved him from the shadow which clawed at him. He swung his shield at whatever grabbed at him and made contact, his shield making a dull 'thud' against the alien's exoskeleton. Dozens of smaller arms with tinier claws all grabbed at him simultaneously. Steve hit the creature again and again, dodging the armored claws, which for some reason his shield could only scratch, and the smaller ones, which were vulnerable if he cut them off close to the torso. He was so busy fighting that he couldn't even pause long enough to get a good look at it.
He tripped over something and fell backwards, smashing the back of his skull on pipes which gave a hollow ring. The alien snapped at him, both claws trying to get past his shield to get at his throat. Steve rolled and realized what he had tripped over. Washington. The Marine's chest rose and fell, but blood trickled out from the edge of one eye, visible even against his chocolate skin. The same wound Natasha had sported after the attack which had cost them the USS John F. Kennedy. Only this wound was a lot more messy. Because of the volcano? Or had Steve interrupted whatever it had been trying to do? One of the claws gripped the edge of his shield and tried to tear it out of his hand.
"Oh no you don't," Steve shouted, kicking the torso of what appeared to be a gigantic, seven-foot-tall bug. Not what he'd been expecting, but he had caught glimpses of whatever the hell he'd cut in half the night the aliens had stormed the Triskelion. A panther-like maw, two crab-like primary claws, and dozens of smaller ones. The thing Count Rugen had tried to warn him about. The alien had sets of eyes on every claw, peering at him from every direction.
It slammed his shield repeatedly against the wall, slamming Steve against the wall with it when he refused to let go.
"Can't … we … umpf … just … discuss … ouch … this?" Steve grunted out in pain between body slams.
The creature gave an ear-splitting shriek, appearing to be able to create sound on more than one frequency at the same time. Whatever sound it was making, Steve could feel the sound waves vibrate deep in his bones. The way a pipe organ resonated the big bass pipes during Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Steve twisted his shield just as the creature was cocking its claw to slam him against the enormous stainless steel pipes running alongside the wall of a concrete corridor and managed to yank it free, the claws unable to hold onto the slippery metal. A moan of pain came from Washington as the creature stepped on him in its zeal to get at him.
"Washington," Steve shouted. "If you can hear me, you've got to get up!"
Dozens of smaller black claws grabbed at him, more agile than the brute force of the larger pair. Steve bobbed and dodged, thankful he'd spent the past six months sparring with the lightweight gang kids, whose youthful exuberance always gave him a run for his money. Big men punched. Little men ducked. It was a good thing Steve remembered how to duck like a little man and avoid getting hit by the bigger ones or he'd have been toast right about now.
Maybe it was time he bit the bullet and let Stark outfit him with one of those pulse reactor thingy's…?
A deeper rumble came from inside the tunnel, a howling noise like a jet engine warming up. Away from the direction Yasur volcano was erupting just a few feet through the blast door he'd rolled through. The pipes which lined the wall, and there were dozens of them, began to make a noise like the hull of a submarine when it was making a deep dive. Pressure. The machinery began to hum.
The alien screeched and hit at him one last time, then turned and ran down the corridor. Outside the blast door, Yasur shot up a fresh round of magma. Steve threw his body over Washington's, covering both of their faces with his shield. The magma hit Washington's leg where he hadn't been able to cover it. Washington screamed as the molten rock began to burn through his fatigues. His eyes shot open.
"Corporal Washington!" Steve shouted. "Can you walk?"
Washington shrieked and tried to scurry back from him, his eyes wild.
"It's okay, Marine," Steve said, recalling Marines hated to be called 'soldier.' "I'm here to get you out of here. We don't leave our men behind."
"Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-what w-w-was that thing?" Washington stuttered, holding his eye.
"Shape shifter," Steve said. "I've encountered one before. It's a good thing I got here when I did or who knows what it would have done to you?"
He knew what it would have done to him. Whatever thing it had done to bend Natasha and the other Melanesian islanders to its will. Only … Natasha had been in a coma for a month, while the Vanuatian and other Melanesian Island nation residents who'd disappeared then come back a bit 'off' had all similarly vanished for around a month and then come back. Washington appeared to be fully cognizant of his surroundings. Steve just hoped he wasn't dealing with another shape shifter.
The roaring from down the tunnel, away from Yasur, grew louder. Heat blasting at him from inside the tunnels made the volcano seem cool by comparison. The pipes which ran down both sides of the walls hummed louder, metal screaming in protest as too much pressure was pumped through the pipes. They began to glow red hot.
"I can walk, Sir," Washington said, his brown eyes round with terror. "If you help me."
Steve grabbed his arm and heaved him up, the big Marine heavy even for him to carry. Although Doctor Erskine's machine had made him far stronger than an average man, he was still just a man. He could run faster, endure longer, and lift more, but that didn't make him a titan like Thor.
"You've got to carry more of your own weight, Marine," Steve ordered. "Or I'm not going to be able to carry you out of here. You don't want me to drop you down into that volcano, do you?"
"No, Sir," Washington said.
Washington was shaky, but if Steve acted like a crutch and kept him against the wall, he could aim him that way if he fell. Steve put his shield between them and the volcano, acutely aware that Washington's fatigues gave him little protection against the molten lava. Flames shot out of the tunnel they had been in only moments before, the volcano beneath them making a kind of sucking noise as whatever the pipes were pumping out of it had just run out.
A fresh earthquake hit the caldera, causing the flat place where they'd been standing only moments before to fall away. Pipes gleamed in the sunlight, no longer hidden. One of them burst. Smoke … no .. steam came pouring out of pipes designed to go around the caldera and gather heat from the volcano below.
"Let's get out of here, Sir," Washington said, trying his best to stand.
The big Marine was shaky, but adrenaline and a will to live made him keep moving one foot in front of the other, slowly climbing out of the caldera as it puffed clouds of pumice and smoke at them. The thing stank like rotten eggs, but at the moment, it only shot sparks at them. They crested the rim and looked down to see Vasquez and Garcia there, two pairs of hands waiting to grab them.
"Commander Rogers," Vasquez shouted above the rumble of the volcano. "We don't leave our men behind, Sir."
"You were ordered to return to Base," Steve said, the tone of his voice conveying how very happy he was that they hadn't returned to base.
"We had a bit of radio trouble, Sir," Garcia said with a grin. "The last thing we heard Base say was that you were supposed to get the hell out of here. Didn't hear any order telling us to go."
The other Marines took turns helping Washington down towards the jeep, even the old Vanuatian man lending a shoulder to lean on. They jammed Washington into the back of the jeep like a sack of potatoes.
The ground shuddered beneath their feet. Off to their right, enormous cracks began to appear on the larger ash cone, Mount Tukosmera.
"Get the hell out of here!" Steve ordered. "For real this time."
"Do as I say and not as I do," Sgt. Grady said with a grin. "Huh?"
"Damn right," Steve said. "That's why we're called super heroes. We're expendable."
Rocks crumbled off of Mount Tukosmera. Yasur's larger companion. A volcano which had reportedly been extinct since the Pleistocene era. The mountain split in half and began to fall apart, as though it were a clam shell opening
"What the fuck?" Garcia shouted. "I thought that damned volcano was extinct?"
"Obviously not," Sgt. Grady said.
"Go!" Steve shouted.
It was not the rumble of a second volcano erupting that stopped them in their tracks, but a whistle like a thousand jet engines saying hello to a few dozen rocket ships. The 'mountain' began to heave upwards towards the sky.
"Oh … shit …" Vasquez choked out.
Steve stared in horror as black volcanic sand and pumice fell away from the monstrous ship which heaved itself out of its hiding place and launched itself into the air.
"Base, Base," Sgt. Grady shouted into his radio. "It's one of those goddamned leviathans … coming straight at you."
"That don't look right," Garcia said.
Washington collapsed into the back of the jeep. Seeing as he'd nearly had his brains sucked out of his head, nobody was going to hold it against him.
"That's no leviathan," Steve said, noting the lack of an undulating pattern on the ship. He recalled the ship Tony Stark had described he had seen when he'd carried the nuclear weapon through the dimensional portal opened up by Loki and lobbed it at the mother ship. There had been a second one on Earth all along?
"Base, this is Eagle One," Steve called. "You need to put a call in to the President. We've got a mother ship on this planet. Repeat. We have a mother ship on this planet. And it's headed straight at you."
"Lock and load!" Sgt. Grady shouted from his side. "Shoulder mounted RPG's. Now!"
M-17's swung into position as two Marines whose name Steve couldn't remember grabbed RPG's out of the back of the jeep and aimed them so nobody would get blasted out the back when the miniature missiles took off.
"Fire at will!" Sgt. Grady shouted.
Steve pulled out his sidearm, a Chitauri-enhanced 'ray gun' he called it. It was Stark Industries pulse reactor pistol, part Chitauri energy weapon. The Marines did the same, their pulse-reactor enhanced M-17's making the distance needed to hit the side of the enemy ship, but they were so puny in comparison to the mountain-sized mother ship that they did no significant damage.
"Look at the size of that thing," Washington said, his hand over one eye. He aimed his M-17 at the ship and fired with the other hand.
"See … I tell you," Pisiv, the old man said. "Not John Frum who come to village, lure son. That false god."
"Glad to see you're still with us, Marine," Steve shouted at Washington, his aim off, but determined to fire at the mother ship which was so big it ignored them like fleas. Steve took aim and fired off a few more shots himself. From this elevation, they could see all the way to the ocean. The USS America sat like shark chum in Sulfur Bay. Bait. The thing the mother ship was headed straight for.
"Base, you've got trouble coming your way," Steve shouted into the microphone.
"I think it would be more fair to say it has trouble coming its way, Cap," a familiar voice came over the radio.
"Fury," Steve called. "Where the heck have you been?"
The mother ship banked and flew slightly further north. A moment later, it corrected its direction again. It was no longer headed for Sulfur Bay, but the ocean just north of it.
"They're running away!" Garcia cheered.
"Keep shooting," Steve said. He hit the broadcast button on his radio. "Anyone on the ground or air … this is Eagle One. If you've got anything to hit that thing with, hit it. I repeat. Throw everything you've got at it. We might not be able to bring it down, but we can damage it."
"Eagle One, this is Base," the Marines commander called from the USS America. "We've got a little help coming from our friends."
One … no … three … dots rose above the ocean at the next island on the Vanuatian chain, Aniwa, little more than an archipelago a few miles away from Tanna. The mother ship was ignoring the USS America and headed straight for that island. It must have spotted the …
"It's the USS Gerald Ford!" Steve shouted, finally recognizing the ship. "And two … others?"
On either side of the Gerald Ford flew two smaller carriers, one a Chinese light carrier retrofitted with helicarrier drives, the other some strange looking ship unlike anything he had ever seen before but obviously terrestrial in origin. By the sickle and hammer painted on the side, it must be Russian. The two smaller ships broke off and circled to either side, leaving the Gerald Ford to play chicken with the Chitauri mother ship.
"Avengers, Avengers, this is S.H.I.E.L.D.," Nick Fury shouted. "You are to harry that ship like a wolf pack. I repeat. You are to harry that ship like a wolf pack. We just got confirmation from Stark Industries that there is something to Commander Roger's theory about the aliens not being able to process two conflicting threats at the same time. I want every man on that island, I don't care if you just throw sticks at them, to distract them."
Dozens of fighter jets lifted off from the ocean-bound USS America as well as the three ships that were airborne. The mother ship did the same thing, releasing dozens of Chitauri gliders. Moments later, attack helicopters took off, some of the ones coming off the Russian ships types he'd never seen before. The boom of something going supersonic caught his attention from the rear. He glanced up just in time to see Iron Man and Thor go flying towards the rear of the mother ship in perfect formation like a pair of fighter jets.
Small weapons fire and RPG's erupted from several positions just east of them. Ground units. Platoons of Marines who'd dug in and were shooting at the enormous ship and the Chitauri gliders erupting from it from wherever they patrolled. The damage they could inflict on the bigger ship was minimal, but they could provide ground cover for the fighter jets against the gliders. Even a great beast could be brought down if you pricked it with a needle enough times.
"The mother ship is out of range, Sir," Sgt. Grady said. "Request permission to move closer to the action?"
A disturbance at the edge of the ash field caught his attention. A momentary glimpse of a big green head and arm rose above a tree top, then disappear under again as the Hulk grabbed a glider out of the air and smashed it, then continued bounding after the enemy. On his radio, Steve could hear Nick Fury barking orders at the combined fleet, coordinating regular military assets with Avengers and SHIELD to take the mother ship down.
"Get your ass up here, Commander Rogers," Nick Fury shouted over the radio, whooping like he'd just won the lottery. "Damn, Cap! Who'd have thought a 67-year-old treasure map would yield gold!"
Pulse-reactor enhanced cannons fired off the Gerald Ford and blasted at the mother ship, the two smaller heli-vessels firing off somewhat similar weapons. It appeared the alien threat had inspired the three normally hostile superpowers to quit bickering and share technology to address the bigger threat of world domination. Smoke streamed out of the mother ship wherever the cannons made impact, wounding the great ship which had crossed galaxies.
Steve grinned. Vindicated. At last. He turned to the Recon Force squadron leader, Sgt. Grady.
"Go get 'em, Marines!" Steve hooted at Sgt. Grady. "I've got to get myself airborne so I can help them out."
Fighter jets swarmed the island and Sulfur Bay like black flies in the spring. Out in the ocean, the USS Gerald Ford pounded the mother ship with everything it had. It wasn't just Earth-based technology they were using this time, but the Chitauri's own weapons against them. And this time, the Gerald Ford had been retrofitted with Stark Industries Jericho missiles. Hundreds of them split apart and landed all over the Chitauri mother ship, wreaking damage that, while not carrying the massive destruction of a nuclear device, came damned close. The technology Tony Stark had said he'd never allow to be used for military applications ever again. It appeared the alien invasion over New York had given him a change of heart.
"Whoo!" the Marines shouted, punching their fists into the air in a sign of victory as they piled back into the jeep.
The Marines tore out of there like bats out of hell, headed straight for the disappearing mother ship. Even the old guy, Pisiv, grabbing a lowly pistol and aiming regular bullets at the tail of the ship. Steve jogged towards his Harrier jet and leaped up onto the wing to climb into the cockpit. One of the bad things about instituting a shutdown to land was it took a good fifteen minutes to get the engines powered up to take off again. He had been expecting a threat from the ground, not the air. The engines hummed and then whined as jet engines began to warm, the whistle of the afterburners turning into a dull roar. He glanced out to see a modified Chitauri glider coast in for a landing. One of theirs.
"Natasha?" Steve asked. He couldn't hear anything above the engines.
Natasha stepped off the glider and gestured for him to get out. Boy … she looked pissed. But she wasn't armed … and last he'd heard she was still in charge. There was a whole lot of things going on here he didn't understand. Steve climbed out, not trustful, but not sure how to react. It appeared Fury had compartmentalized everyone so that a mole in one unit had no idea what a separate unit was up to. He slid off the wing, watchful and wary. At this point, he didn't know who was compromised.
"Do you have any idea what you've just done?" Natasha pointed towards the mother ship, which was getting the crap kicked out of it by the wolf-pack of three that had snuck up on the island while the Marines had been playing bait, keeping the aliens too occupied watching the mock D-Day invasion they had unrolled right in their back yard when the real threat was creeping up on them under cover of the smaller islands.
"I don't understand," Steve said. "What's your problem?"
"My problem, man out of time," Natasha hissed, "is that you have no idea what you just called down upon this planet. I've been setting up this game for more than three hundred years, , and now you've gone and ruined it."
As she spoke, her voice took on the low undertone he had noticed that day in the Triskelion when she'd confronted the blonde-haired, dark-skinned shape shifter that had assumed the shape of one of the Vanuatian Melanesian Islanders. The one who had appeared to be dressing her down for something before she had ordered him to kill it. Natasha's voice became deeper, no longer feminine. It seemed … familiar.
"I don't know who you're working for," Steve said, slipping his shield off his back. "But Earth will never bow down to any master."
"No," Natasha hissed. "It's gone way past that. You don't know what you've just unleashed. All I ever wanted was to rule this world. To shape it and make it part of the larger empire. So long as I kept control, the Other didn't care enough to be bothered by you. But your actions with Loki have angered them, man out of time. Now the Other is just going to destroy you."
Natasha swung at him. Her lightning fast reflexes were similar to Natasha, but the strength which was behind it was far greater than a normal humans. Even an infinity-serum enhanced on. It felt as though he were fighting … himself. Steve got knocked backwards into the sand.
"What are you?" Steve asked.
"You've met me before, man out of time," Natasha said. "In one of my other forms. This time, I'm going to take care of you so you can't screw up any more of my plans."
"Not likely," Steve said. He waited until she swung at him again, a move nearly identical to one of Natasha's, but now that he understood it wasn't her, he could detect the footprint of a much heavier creature. He waited until her leg extended to its full length, the position of least stored energy, and slammed down the edge of his shield to sever it.
Natasha screeched, an inhuman, blood curdling sound as the shield hit bone. She punched at him, but her hands were no longer just hands, but had begun to shift form into something else. Tentacles. She knocked him back, the hands reshaping themselves into claws, as she reached for his throat. He hit her again, but the claws solidified enough to be impenetrable even to virbanium.
"I've had enough of you, man out of time," Natasha said. "You're not in charge of this world. I am. And this time, I'm not going to let you get in my way."
Steve stared into cold blue eyes and remembered where he had seen such eyes before. Where he had heard that voice before. Where he had heard somebody say 'you're not in charge of this world' before.
"Herr Kleiser," Steve gasped.
"You remember me," Natasha aka Herr Kleiser laughed. "And now you're going to serve me as one of my puppets."
"I'd rather be dead," Steve hissed. He punched her in the belly and immediately spun around to land a tornado kick in her chest. Natasha stepped to one side and landed a back scorpion kick to his abdomen, then did a move he'd never seen her do before, grabbing at his throat with a claw-like hand. He gurgled in agony as Natasha lifted him off the ground by his throat, his neck pinched between her vice-like claws, the rest of her still human. He had no choice but to grab at and hold the claw which gripped him like a vice, trying to prevent her from snapping his neck. One of the smaller claws rose level with his head. A narrow tentacle shot out, aiming straight for his eye.
"You have something I need, man out of time," Natasha said, pulling his face inches from hers. "Killing you would deprive me of your usefulness. But don't worry. I'll have you behaving in no time."
The tentacle shot straight into the edge of his eye. Steve screamed. Fire shot into his brain as the tentacle burrowed deep into his skull. His kicks were fruitless against the creature, which held him away from its body so he couldn't land a kick. He swung his shield up from below, into the underside of the joint of the claw. A vulnerable spot. Natasha shrieked and dropped him before she could finish whatever she was doing, the tentacle yanking out of his brain. His shield remained stuck halfway into the elbow joint of the claw, no longer at his hands. He grabbed his damaged eye, unable to see as he fought the urge to vomit. Or pass out.
"Then again," Natasha shrieked, kicking at him while he was down. "You're too damned much trouble."
She picked him up as though he were a rag doll. Dozens of smaller tentacles clawed into his face and chest as a large claw gripped his midsection and began to crush it. Steve screamed as he felt her claw pierce his armor right into his belly, tearing through the skin into his entrails. The world grew dark and far away, the sound of his own heartbeat beating in his ears as coldness sank into him, just as it had when the ice had taken him all those years ago.
Bernice…
Pain caused a weird euphoria as his body recognized not even he could survive a wound such as this…
He closed his eyes.
Bernice…
He pictured her in his mind, an angel come down from heaven to grace his wedding bed. The touch of her flesh against his, teaching him what it meant to be loved. Black hair sweeping across her ivory, swanlike neck. One soft breast peeking out from beneath the covers. His wife. It was an image he would carry with him across time. The one thing not even Time itself could steal from him.
The claws tearing at his entrails paused.
"What are you doing here?" Natasha asked.
Steve forced his eyes to focus. Clint. Landing a glider. The archer stared down the shaft of an arrow that was aimed straight for Steve, a grenade-tipped arrowhead screwed onto the front of it. Clint drew back his bow and aimed straight for Steve's heart. Natasha's claw-like hands had disappeared the moment she had let go of him. She stepped back, giving Clint a clear shot.
"Kill him," Natasha said.
Gasping for breath, each jerk of his diaphragm shot pain into his punctured intestines as he lay upon the ground, watching the battle which went on in the panorama of the ocean his birds-eye perch afforded. It felt as though he were no longer in his body. He saw the Chitauri mother ship take a direct hit from the USS Gerald Ford. Smoke poured out of its propulsion system as the two smaller ships harried it like wolves nipping at its heels. All around it, hundreds of attack helicopters and fighter jets fired upon it with everything they had, the sky turned fiery red from the setting sun. The mother ship keeled and tilted down into the ocean in slow motion.
Victory. At least his death would not be in vain.
"I love you," Clint whispered to Natasha. "I will always love you."
Clint let fly the arrow.
Bernice…
Steve shut his eyes, thankful that at least his death would be quick.
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Just a reminder … links/images to stuff I dug up while researching this chapter and my notes about how it ties into this story are now posted on a special Facebook page I set up for just that (so I don't spam people with irrelevant crap). You can either just hop over for a peek after reading, or 'like' it to get teasers of stuff I'm looking into before I post the next chapter. The link is: w w w . facebook pages / Anna-Erishkigal / 203837383044945?ref=hl
Image/info - volcanic geothermal stuff, UA version of Chitauri, Mt. Yasur exploding, alien ships, and Hawkeye.
Soundtrack for Chapter 50: Two Steps From Hell - Black Blade
[Hey … Fanficnet … with all the cool upgrades you've been adding … why not add a capability to embed pictures/links/music right into the story? ]
