Avengers: Wreckage

Chapter 35

Asgard was dead.

Ragnarock, the Twilight of the Gods, had finally come. The home of the gods lay in ruins, the magical Rainbow Bridge connecting the Nine Worlds was shattered. But if you had the power and knowledge, you could still get there.

"Well, shit," Amora the Enchantress sighed to herself as she walked through the wrecked armory of the city of Asgard, itself. She had hoped to recover a useful weapon or two, but it was pretty much emptied out.

The Infinity Gauntlet rested on a stand, gold metal and six shining gems. She walked over, poked it, and it fell over with a loud clunk.

"Fake," Amora shook her head.

She recovered some mildly enchanted knives, and a pouch of carrying to hail them in. Other than that, the armory was a total bust.

Worse, there was stuff missing that concerned her. The Norn Stones, unpredictable magic artifacts, were gone. As well, the Casket of Ancient Winters, a Frost Giant weapon, was also missing. And as far as she knew, none of them had been used in the last battle... Any of them falling into the wrong hands was very dangerous.

Using her magic Amora teleported to her former home. There she used a portal magic she had prepared years ago, and vanished from Asgard.

Amora reappeared in LA, in a long abandoned wearhouse that the portal was connected to. She owned it through various shell companies, and she was moderately confident that Lady Octopus didn't know about it. Despite that, she got out as quickly as possible, cloaking her magic and then using a disguise spell.

Which was a VERY good idea, because apparently just opening the portal set up a flare. Amora saw a Crimson Dynamo armor do a flyby, the bulky red suit apparently trying to find her.

'Shit,' Amora thought as she hurried away.

Later that day Amy Ray was returning from her shift as a 'secretary.' The job was just a cover as she was functionally wealthy, to keep people from asking awkward questions. She could have just posed as a wealthy heiress, but that required explaining where the money came from.

"Jackie!" Amy waved at her lover as they met on the street.

"Hey," Jackie smiled back, the two kissing lingeringly.

"I missed you," Amy purred, faintly surprised she meant it. The Asgard trip had taken days...

"Me too," Jackie agreed, an arm around Amy's shoulders. "Any plans for tonight? Some work friends want to meet my hot girlfriend."

Amy suspected said friends were the superheros Force Works. Apparently Jackie had mentioned her to them. "Sure, maybe we could do dinner," she suggested mildly.

"Good, I want everyone to meet you," Jackie said proudly.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Bethany Cabe was head of security for Stark Enterprises. She also handled police related matters for Stark. If a scientist employed for Stark was arrested, while Public Relations worked her job was to bail them out.

May Scott, the head of security for Stane Enterprises, entered the bar and walked over to Beth's table. "Got your call," May nodded.

Because Tony and Olivia didn't like each other, they had their security people talk instead. Neither woman minded because they could put the food and drink for their covert meetings on the companies' tabs...

"Force Works managed to intercept a Cape Killer shipment," May revealed as she ordered lunch on the restaurant app, "and turned it over to SHIELD."

Beth scowled, "We never got a notice about it from SHIELD."

"Shit. Who's your liason with SHIELD?" May asked.

"Tony directly engages with Hill," Beth admitted, "so we can't just ask a flunky about it..."

"We have an 'official' agent assigned to Stane, one Victoria Hand. I can ask her about why you weren't told, as she really isn't impressed with Hill," May suggested.

"I'd appreciate it, as long as it doesn't bounce back at her," Beth admitted.

"She's got ovaries of steel. She once wrote NICK FURY to tell him he was doing his job wrong," May noted cheerfully.

Beth looked at her in disbelief, "Seriously."

"Seriously," May agreed. She checked, "Do we know how much gear went missing?" She read out what they had recovered.

Beth cursed softly. "Just weapons? Not armor or the flight gear?" she confirmed.

"Just the guns," May confirmed.

Beth looked very unhappy. "While the armor and such isn't THAT dangerous, in the wrong hands...," she sighed.

"We think Master Planner is just a crook," May admitted, "but yeah. Imagine a team of flying, armored bank robbers."

"Exactly," Beth agreed.

The business side done, both women ordered some food and set to talking...

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Madame Masque, Ghost and Living Laser were all looking around them in irritation, while Spymaster lurked and looked cool. "Who called us here?" Masque demanded, the black haired woman's face hidden behind a gold mask.

"Indeed," Ghost said, wearing his odd white bodysuit.

"Someone made an offer to each of us to lure us here. That takes guts," Laser noted, his voice distorted by his energy form.

"That'd be me," Spymaster admitted, then the masked man continued, "I want to recruit you all for a job."

"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you," Masque demanded, drawing a pistol at her side.

"Because I can give you what you most want," Spymaster said.

"Oh?" Ghost drawled.

"I want us to team up to kill Tony Stark," Spymaster said.

"Show me the plan," Laser said dubiously, "we've all tried it, and all failed."

"Ah, but right now he's distracted!" Spymaster pushed on, "We can use that to..."

Before anything else could be said, the roof crashed down as a huge figure landed! Another followed, and the four gaped as they saw Crimson Dynamo and an early, bulky Titanium Man armor standing before them.

"You called them too?" Ghost asked.

"FUCK no!" the visibly rattled Spymaster yelped.

"No one move. Or we'll shoot you all," the Dynamo ordered.

"The fuck...?" Masque muttered.

The Titanium Man moved forward, and a hologram projector activated. The clocked, eerie figure flickered into existance in front of them.

"I am the Master Planner. I now control criminal activities in LA." the figure said.

"And what does that have to do with us?" Laser demanded.

"Crimson?" Master Planner gestured.

With no warning the Dynamo fired off a powerful electrical burst. The Laser cried out, then exploded in a wild blast of uncontrolled energy.

"ACK!" Spymaster visibly flinched.

"You ask permission to carry out jobs in LA," Master Planner said patiently, "we don't want gangs fighting each other over targets. Understood?"

"Understood! Understood!" Spymaster blurted out.

"Good," Master Planner gave them contact information, the hologram winked out and the two armors took off once more.

"Holy shit," Ghost managed once they were gone.

"Screw this, I'm out of here," Masque declared, taking off out the door.

"Agreed," Ghost concurred as he followed her out.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo set down not that far away from the building. "Laser?" Titanium asked, directing their voice into the air.

In a moment light and energy pulled back together, and the Living Laser was intact once more. "That stung, Dynamo!" he complained.

"Sorry," Crimson Dynamo didn't sound that apologetic.

"So why did Master Planner have you pretend to kill me?" Living Laser wondered.

"Because it scared the hell out of them," Titanium shrugged, "they now think the Boss could kill them at will. That makes them more likely to obey, or at worse they'll skip town and won't be our problem anymore."

"That makes sense," the Laser conceded.

"The Boss has arranged for you to get lab facilities, in exchange for your great acting job," Crimson Dynamo passed a document over, "it's an older Cordco lab, specializing in optics. That was your thing, right?"

"Ah, yes. Thank you," Laser replied, surprised by their Boss' generosity.

"She'll call you again if you're needed," Crimson Dynamo added, then the group split up as well.

To be continued...

Notes: I wanted to explain why Iron Man's usual villains weren't getting involved, so I had them cameo and get scared off.