Disclaimer: Marvel Characters are property of Marvel. Original Characters are mine. Just for fun, not for profit.
The Needs of the Many
"Guys, we need to concentrate our attacks on the planet killer," Hawkeye called over the comm.
"I would, but I just got booted," Spiderman replied. "I'll try taking over this one, but it'll take some time."
"I'm in the same situation," Captain America said grimly. "I'm fighting my way to the command center now."
"I did not survey that vessel during my reconnaissance," Vision admitted. "I am not certain it is possible to teleport aboard without being in line of sight. I will attempt to board."
"Not sure we have time for that," Hawkeye muttered. "Guess it's up to the little guy." Veering away from the cloud of fighters, he flew straight at the disc. As soon as he thought he was close enough, he launched everything the little vessel had at the menacing superweapon. Most of his shots impacted on an invisible force field several meters before they would have reached the surface of the planet killer, detonating harmlessly in space.
"I am not certain your craft has enough firepower to have any impact on anything so heavily shielded," Vision pointed out.
"They'll have to drop the shield to make their attack," Hawkeye pointed out reasonably. "I just have to time it right."
"They're almost in position," Nyssa warned. Hawkeye reached back and set the other explosive Tony had given him on the gauge cluster in front of him. Reaching out, he hesitated a moment, then armed it. An alert blared on his control panel, and he veered his craft sharply to the right to avoid incoming fire from the other fighters flying after him. Twisting the control knob in a circle, he steered his fighter in a spiral. The timer on the explosive in front of him counted the seconds down. "Clint, they've given the order to fire." Nyssa's voice held a note of desperation. "Whatever you're going to do, we're running out of time."
"That's my cue, then," Hawkeye replied. He corrected course, firing covering bursts behind him to deter the other alien ships from following him. "If this goes the way I'm hoping it won't, tell Laura I love her."
"Clinton Francis Barton, you are not about to martyr yourself," Black Widow snapped over the channel.
"That's not my intent, no, but this one's going to be pretty damn close," he retorted, glancing at the numbers counting down on the explosive riding shotgun in his ship.
"It may be close, but remember the ring," Nyssa reminded him. "You should still be able to get clear." As he approached the disc, a point of light shone at the center, then grew larger. The light grazed against the side of his fighter, and his eyes widened as the wing on that side was suddenly gone. The ship began to spin, but he kept steady, focused on his objective.
"That beam is hitting the middle of the Atlantic Ocean," Nyssa reported. "Going by the infrared weather satellites, temperatures have risen significantly throughout the ocean. At the location of the attack, the ocean is boiling."
"We can't have that," Hawkeye replied. Accelerating faster, he skimmed along the beam of energy, getting closer to the eye of the planet killer as the last few seconds counted down on the oxygen bomb. At the last possible second, he swerved directly into the path of the beam. He closed his eyes, bracing for impact while willing himself as far away as possible. Everything suddenly went quiet, and he opened his eyes to find himself drifting in space. Around him, the invading fleet floated, deceptively tranquil. A flash of light drew his attention, and he looked upwards to see the center of the planet killer light up in neon blue and white. The explosion almost seemed to move in slow motion. The conflagration spread as the massive weapon collapsed inwards, then was pushed outwards by the force of the explosion. The ships around Hawkeye were scrambling frantically now, as the shock wave traveled through the fleet. He watched as it bloomed like a lethal flower, unfurling its fatal petals in the space above the planet he called home. It collided with many of the ships as it traveled. Some were knocked violently off course. Others exploded, little flashes of white against the blue and gold background.
"Beautiful," Clint breathed.
"Hawkeye, hostiles on your six," Nyssa warned sharply. He started to turn to look, twirling slowly in a zero-gravity pirouette. He didn't turn in time to see the fighter approaching from behind, silent in the vacuum of space. He didn't hear the noiseless report of energy-based alien artillery. The impact of the weapon barely even registered in his conscious mind as it seared through flesh, organs and nerves instantly, leaving behind silence and cold as his lifeless body tumbled through space. The fighter that had fired on him flew past his corpse, accelerating to rejoin the fight.
"Noooo, Clint!" Nyssa cried out, gritting her teeth. At her feet, Darshan got up and laid his head in her lap, whining softly at her distress. She rested one hand on his head, fighting back tears.
"What happened to Clint?" Natasha's terse question sounded over the comm.
"Something happened to Barton?" Tony joined in with alarm. The others joined in a chorus of concern. Nyssa closed her eyes.
"Hawkeye is down," she reported.
"Where?" Natasha asked sharply. "If I can get to him…"
"No," Nyssa said softly. "It's too late." There were several long moments of silence as the team digested the news.
"He will be missed," Fury intoned. "It's not all bad news, though. He did manage to take out their planet killer, and that took out almost a quarter of their fleet."
"Thank you, Clint," Winter Soldier said softly, his tone making it a prayer for the departed.
"This is not over yet, I fear," Vision contributed. "The remaining ships are regrouping. The flagship remains, as well as more than five thousand fighters that are still fully armed and operational."
"There is also a phalanx of ships beginning to descend into our atmosphere," Nyssa informed them. "Going by the chatter that I'm able to pick up on their communication channels, they still intend to take the planet. It will just take more effort and fighting now that they don't have their most powerful weapon."
"We're not done fighting yet, either," Cap said resolutely.
"No," Wanda agreed, fire and fury in her tone. "If death and destruction are what they desire, that is what they shall have." Red glowed from her eyes and cascaded from her fingertips. She appeared in the middle of the fleet, staring up at the invading ships, and raised her arms. She made a grasping motion with her hands, then pulled them violently apart. The largest spacecraft floating above her tore apart, spilling Vruuxel and equipment out into the cold vacuum that surrounded it. Eyes blazing, she turned her attention to the next ship and repeated the gesture, with similar results. One of the ships exploded outward as Ant Man became Giant Man. Reaching out, he grasped a mid-sized cruiser in each hand, then smashed them together.
"We need to keep those ships from touching down on the planet," Captain America pointed out. "If they land, there will be lots of civilian casualties."
"On it," Iron Man replied. Changing direction, he flew towards Earth's atmosphere like a red and gold comet.
"Right behind you, Tony," War Machine chimed in.
"I'm there, too," Falcon joined in. "This is what I'm built for." Once he had entered the atmosphere, he pulled a lever on the front of his suit. Some of the extraneous pieces for surviving in space broke away, jettisoned towards the planet below. His wings spread from what had previously been his jet pack. Flying towards the nearest ship, he fired both barrels from the firearms Tony had equipped him with, then followed up with rockets from his jet pack. The blasts impacted on the spacecraft's shields, barely even shaking the ship.
"We'll have to get closer in," Iron Man suggested. "Inside their shielding. Aerate their hulls, let the atmosphere in."
"You sure about that?" War Machine asked skeptically. "These things are traveling at Mach 8. One misstep, and we're a bug on a windshield."
"I'm aware," Iron Man said archly. "Don't go splat."
Nick Fury stepped closer to Nyssa, watching her carefully. Her unseeing eyes were wide and staring blankly, gleaming suspiciously with unshed tears. Her face was pale, strained and drawn, exhaustion etched in the lines and shadows on her countenance. At her feet, Darshan whined quietly, nudging against her with his nose. On the viewscreen, several images flickered, fuzzing and jumping erratically.
"Dr. Taylor, do you need to take a moment?" Fury asked. His tone, while still commanding, was not unkind. Nyssa blinked for the first time since he had started watching her closely.
"No, sir," she breathed quietly. "I can't leave now; we've reached a critical juncture. They need me to…"
"They need you to be able to focus, not push yourself to the point where you're useless," Fury replied bluntly. "You've been working continuously since this all started, managing more than a dozen data streams, monitoring our fighters, listening in to enemy communications, coordinating our attacks. Friday can take over for some of those duties, but not all of them. Now, I still don't know how you do what it is that you do, but I can see that a task of this magnitude takes its toll on you. I can't afford to have you exhausted to the point where you start making dumb mistakes." Nyssa's indignance faded, and guilt flashed across her face. Fury sat on the table in front of her. "So, Patchwork Doll, only one question remains. Are you going to go recharge yourself, or do I need to relieve you of duty?" She sat back with a sharp intake of breath at his ultimatum, then shook her head. Pushing back from the table, she stood.
"I guess I could take fifteen and go get some coffee," she said ruefully. She paced over to the exit, Darshan falling into position beside her right leg automatically. In the doorway, she paused and half-turned back towards Fury. "Do you want me to bring one for you?" she asked, an impish twinkle in her eye. Fury shook his head at her.
"Sure," he sighed. "Black, no sugar." She gave a little nod, then left.
Bucky had gotten more precise with his attacks as he grew more familiar with using the teleportation ring and the layout of the Vruuxel attack vessels. He appeared suddenly in the engineering section, planted the activated grenade directly on the vulnerable engine, then disappeared before anyone even knew he had been there. He zapped himself into the next ship to repeat his strike, leaving a trail of wrecked and smoldering ships in his wake. He lost track of how many he destroyed, focused only on the next attack. He blinked into existence on one of the largest ships and reached into his pocket to find that it was empty. He had run out of the grenades Iron Man had given him. With a half-stifled curse, he quickly ducked down behind a piece of equipment to keep from being spotted.
"Tony, do you have any more of those oxygen grenades coming?" he asked sotto voce over his comm. "I'm out."
"A little busy at the moment, Soldier," Iron Man replied distractedly. "Production is temporarily suspended due to, you know, trying to save the planet."
"Actually," Nick Fury interjected, glancing over at Tony's workstation and the growing pile of gleaming spheres, "your station's still been spitting those things out. So, anyone who wants more can pop in and grab some." A moment later, Bucky appeared in the room. He paced over to the pile of incendiary devices and began loading them into every pouch and pocket he had available. He glanced around and frowned.
"Where's Nyssa?" he asked.
"Ran to grab some coffee," Fury replied. Bucky frowned. It was unlike Nyssa to abandon her post, and she certainly wasn't some secretary to fetch refreshments. It didn't appear that Fury was about to explain, though. With a shrug, Bucky returned to battle.
Nyssa's feet hurried along the corridor, but she wasn't rushing towards the coffee bar on the third floor or the half-full pot back in her quarters. Instead, she was headed for the twelfth floor. In the back of the storage room, among other pieces of medical equipment in varying degrees of development, a cryochamber hummed. Darshan whined beside her as Nyssa quickly overrode the passcode to get through the door. It took a moment to wade through the metal units crowding the small room, but then she was standing before the cryochamber, looking up at its hibernating contents. It took only a moment to begin the cycle to awaken the person inside. Nyssa waited breathlessly as he slowly thawed, returning to consciousness. His confusion was joined by suspicion and rage as memories and emotion were restored.
"What is this?" Ignatius snapped. "Why have you awakened me?"
"To offer you a chance at redemption," Nyssa replied calmly. "There is an invading alien fleet in orbit as we speak. Their atmosphere is extremely flammable once oxygen is introduced into it, and they are beginning to descend planetside. We need a fighter with your unique abilities."
"So you need my help," Ignatius sneered. "And what then? I help you save the planet, then return for my court martial?"
"If you help us," Nyssa countered, "that will certainly be taken into account. Your fate is not up to me alone, but I can lobby on your behalf. Perhaps you could even join the Avengers." Ignatius snorted, looking away. "If you do not help us," Nyssa continued, "that is your choice. But there may not be a habitable planet for much longer." Ignatius looked back at her, his eyes narrowing. "We need your help, Ignatius. I believe you could be the difference between life and death for everyone on Earth."
"How do I get there?" he asked, glancing around the room. Nyssa held up a small gold band.
"This ring will take you anywhere you imagine," she informed him. "I can give you the image of their ships. You should be able to travel right to it immediately." Ignatius looked at the gold band speculatively, glancing from Nyssa to the ring and back again. Slowly, he reached out and took it from her. Flames began to lick along his skin as he heated up. Reaching up, Nyssa filled his mind with the same images and information she had given the rest of the team. His burning flesh scorched her fingertips, and then he was gone.
Iron Man ran along the surface of the alien ship, ducking low as the energy shield shimmered above him. He was focused on the metal array ahead of him, at the tail of the ship. Extending his hands in front of him, he sent a double blast sailing towards the array. It exploded in a conflagration that soared over Iron Man's head, but the fire quickly vanished as the energy field evaporated. He pushed away from the hull and soared clear.
"Bingo," he said triumphantly. "Found the shield generator. Target that, then let's aerate the bastards." Turning around, he sent a volley of blasts towards the vessel, each one breaking off panels and burning holes through the alien metal. A few miles away, Falcon soared along the space between ship and shield, firing at the shield generator array as he went. He flew through the resulting explosion, then aimed his weapons straight downwards, blasting holes in the hull beneath him as he flew by. War Machine stomped his way down the hull, the repulsor cannon on his shoulder taking out any equipment he could spot. He scored a direct hit on the shield generator, and the field above him flickered and disappeared. Refocusing his aim, he fired at the hull repeatedly, watching it melt away until he could see through to the corridor inside. Modifying the magnetic field on his boots, he stomped to the next section and began again. An explosion above him drew his attention, and he looked up to see the next alien vessel over bursting into a fireball, debris streaking away across the sky. One chunk of debris flew towards him like a malevolent comet. He pushed away from the ship and flew, trying to get clear. As the ball of fire drew closer to him, he could just make out the figure of a man at the center of it. As his brain processed this, the flaming man collided with the alien vessel he had just left, disappearing inside it. A moment later, the ship burst into flames.
Nyssa returned to the command center, a cup of coffee in each hand. She set one down in front of Fury, then situated herself back at the table. She placed a nearly-empty coffee mug to her right, then rested both of her hands on the console at the center. The images on the viewscreen shifted as she took over monitoring, but remained steady, with no sign of flickering or interference.
"Feeling better?" Fury asked. Nyssa gave him a short, sharp nod, her unseeing eyes unfocusing as she concentrated on her internal world.
Wanda bared her teeth, propelling herself through the vacuum of space as she continued tearing apart the ships around her. Frozen Vruuxel and scorched debris drifted away, filling the planet's orbit. Some of it burst into flames as it descended into the atmosphere below. She paused a moment in her destruction, her attention drawn upwards by a bright streak of light. As it drew closer, she could make out a figure clad in red and blue, surrounded by golden light. The streak blasted through several ships, leaving burning wreckage in its wake.
"Danvers to Fury, are you there?" Surprised, Nyssa put the incoming transmission through the speakers. "Carol Danvers, reporting for duty." A broad grin spread across Fury's face.
"Captain Marvel, glad to have you on board," he replied. "You're just in time."
Wanda looked around at the battlefield around her. The newcomer was smashing through some of the larger ships. Thor was floating in space, hands extended, lightning leaping from his fingertips and engulfing some of the nearby ships. Giant Man was larger than even the cruisers, smashing ships together like a child playing with his toys. Flashes of energy sparked across his chest as the ships fired at him, and droplets of blood floated away from him, joining the flotsam drifting around the planet. One of the other ships exploded, and Vision emerged from the wreckage. She couldn't see the others immediately, but she could feel their presence. In the distance, pinpoint spots of light appeared as other alien ships detonated. She moved her gaze up, looking out at the thousands of ships that still remained, and for the first time, doubt crept into her soul like a chill hand. Her rage was beginning to flag, leaving a deep-seated and heavy grief.
"Wanda, are you okay?" Nyssa asked over her headset.
"There's so many," she replied. "How can we possibly defeat them?"
"The same way we always do," Captain America replied. "Together. Beside her, Black Widow suddenly appeared.
"If your rage is waning," she said, "I have plenty to spare." She extended her hand toward Wanda, who took it. Wanda could feel the anger seething within her friend. On her other side, the Hulk appeared. His hand slipped into Black Widow's, and his wrath channeled towards Wanda as well. On her other side, the newcomer stopped, hovering in space. Her eyes glowed gold, hair standing up from her head like a flame. On her chest was emblazoned a star.
"Your power is like mine," Captain Marvel realized out loud. "Perhaps we could augment each other." Wanda's eyes glowed red, and she extended her hand towards the woman. Power flowed from Captain Marvel into Wanda, and inspiration hit like a lightning strike.
"I have an idea," Wanda announced. "But I need everyone with me." She looked from one side to the other.
"Avengers, assemble!" Captain America called. One by one, the other Avengers materialized beside her, joining the human chain floating above the planet. Tapping into their joined energy, Wanda readied herself for a final attack.
The Vruuxel commander looked up in shock as the earthling woman's face appeared on their viewscreen.
"You are no longer welcome here," she informed him shortly, her speech translated through their speakers into their familiar, guttural tongue. "You are hereby banished. Do not return to this space again."
"What are you?" he growled. She stood, suddenly seeming larger than she had with his first impression.
"We are the Avengers," she informed him, "and this planet is under our protection." The image on the screen disappeared as the ship shook and shuddered around them, tossing them from their stations. The Vruuxel commander picked himself up from the floor.
"Report!" He commanded. The astronavigator scrambled to return to her station.
"The fleet is scattered," she reported. "None within communication distance."
"Where are we?" he demanded. She waved her tentacles in distress.
"We are not well acquainted enough with these star charts to say with any accuracy, sir," she said in a shocked and shaky voice. "But we appear to have been thrown twenty thousand light years from our previous location."
Wanda opened her eyes and gazed serenely at the empty sky above her. Not a single alien ship remained in orbit above the Earth. Even the debris that had been littered in space during the battle had disappeared. Releasing hands, the Avengers drifted apart for a moment, then one by one blinked out.
They reappeared in the command center beside a grinning Nick Fury. The room was filled with whoops and cheers of victory and celebration. There were hugs, high fives and congratulatory claps on the back. A few minutes later, Captain Marvel joined them, standing at the side of the room and watching their relieved revelry with the faintest of smiles. Bucky picked Nyssa up and twirled her around, kissing her thoroughly. She kissed him back, but not with as much enthusiasm as he expected. He pulled back and frowned at her.
"What's wrong?" he asked. She mustered a smile for him.
"I'm relieved it's over, and we're all still here," she said, gesturing to the room. "But I should probably go get the kids, and…" She hesitated, taking a deep breath. "Someone has to break the news to Laura." Bucky's mood immediately dropped. In the moment of exhilaration at their victory, he had forgotten what it had cost.
"I'll come with you," Natasha offered.
The procession through the hotel was funereal in its silence. Nyssa and Natasha led the way, with Wanda close behind them and the rest of the Avengers following. Nyssa knocked on the door, and Laura opened it. Her face brightened when she saw them. Behind her, the children were bouncing on the bed or glued to the television.
"We've been watching the news coverage," she said excitedly. "You were brilliant. And the skies are empty, and we're all still here, so that means we won, right?" Nyssa half-nodded, but reached out to take the other woman by the hand.
"Laura, I'm so sorry," she whispered. Laura looked at her sharply.
"What? Why?" she asked sharply, a quaver in her voice.
"Clint fought magnificently in the battle, and we couldn't have won without him," Nyssa informed her solemnly. "But he was killed in battle." Laura's eyes widened, and she slowly shook her head.
"No," she gasped, "no, it's not true." She turned towards Natasha, her expression desperate. "Nat, tell me it's not true." Natasha's face was tight, grief etched into her exquisite features.
"I'm sorry," was all she could manage. A tear trickled down her cheek.
"NOOOO!" Laura's cry echoed down the hall, and she collapsed to her knees, burying her hands in her face. Nyssa and Natasha knelt down beside her, offering their silent support as she wept.
Thanks to DarylDixon'sLover and karina001 for reading and reviewing! Also thanks to my silent readers. I probably won't get another chapter posted before the holidays, so Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Holidays to all, whatever you celebrate! See you all next year (probably).