Chapter 25: Reptil and Kaïra, Two Dangerous Forces
It had to be somewhere around 11am when everyone dashed to Hell's Kitchen the next day after Spiderman called to inform that Kali had struck.
"So I said 'why don't we meet up for a good old nerd chat at the deli', he said 'yeah, and is it OK if I bring some buddies from school, we'll take the bus from Jersey City without problem', and next thing you know, I find out that Kali shot a blast at the street near the Javits Center!" Spiderman explained as the Avengers, the demigods (minus Kory), and, well, the obvious, assembled at Hell's kitchen to see the carnage. People were screaming away from the convention center's area as the streets were cracked, revealing the glowing lava that popped up through the cracks. Kali was breaking through every single blocked car and throwing them away like discarded junk food.
"We got to be careful," Captain America said. "If she gets her hands on that crystallized bone, the locusts will bring the last plague faster than you can imagine."
"Don't you dare try to get revenge…" Iron Man warned Spiderman.
"I'll only get ticked if she hurts Humberto." Spiderman swung himself towards the direction of the goddess. The others imitated him and finally reached a point where they could block the streets, ready to aim at her. More buses were knocked away and people were screaming.
"I see Anubis, his mortal, and the other pack of useless gods failed to show up!" Kali had an expression that varied between suppressed rage and bitterness. "And where's that darling trio of your friend, your doctor's granddaughter, and that banshee, Captain America, huh? I want Medusa's head!"
"Aw, you cared about Sedna." Bacchus mockingly pouted. "Then again, like my stepmother always said, scorned women are the easiest to kill in extravagant fashions!"
"I'm sick of you mortal heroes!" Kali raised her hands, causing small geysers of lava to erupt. "I'd rather melt you all now than wait for the final plague to kill most of you! Sedna will be avenged, Seth will get what he wants, and nobody will forget that I'm…" Kali got interrupted by the Bolt Bus that was thrown at her. Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Falcon had to move out of the way as the bus and Kali crashed onto a van.
"Wow. Way to think fast, Bruce," Black Widow commented.
"Uh, you guys are aware that I haven't transformed, right?" Banner gestured at his dorky clothing that was still intact. Kali melted the bus off of her.
"HEY, CRAWLING BITCH!"
"It's him." Spiderman recognized the voice. It came from a teenager taunting Kali from the entrance of the Javits Center. His medium-skin was showing signs of glowing red veins, his brown hair brushed to the side had the tips dyed in blue, he wore a black-and-green plaid shirt over a pair of torn jeans and Adidas sneakers, and his dark brown eyes had a look of determination. (To give you an idea, imagine if he was casted by Tenzing Norgay Trainor). But what really threw off everyone was the massive Ankylosaurus tail sticking out from his butt, red veins glowing underneath the scales and beating the ground, creating craters.
"Looking for this?" He unbuttoned his shirt, revealing just what Kali was looking for. A thumb-sized crystallized dinosaur fossil buried in his chest, sticking out in a near equivalent of the arc reactor. His glowing red veins were connecting directly to where the relic was planted in him.
"Certainly!" Kali cracked her numerous knuckles.
"Come and get it then!" Humberto Lopez crushed the front door of the Javits Center with his tail and ran inside. Kali created a moat of lava to separate herself from the heroes as she dashed to the center. Maui used his fishhook to summon water to dry up the lava. Then Hawkeye noticed that two teenagers were observing them from behind a taxi.
"You guys need to evacuate!" He told them.
"Not without Humberto!" One of the teenagers, a Caucasian boy with shoulder-length brown hair spoke up. This caught Spiderman's attention and he swung down to them.
"Are you his friends?" He asked while the boy helped some Pakistani-American girl stand up.
"He's in trouble!" The girl exclaimed. "We knew about his dinosaur powers for a month! You gotta know that he goes nuts if he smells human blood being shed! You need to evacuate anyone who's in the center or just send in anyone who's not human! Otherwise, Reptil will go all Jurassic Park on you!"
"Reptil?"
"Yeah, it's what he likes to call himself." She shrugged.
"OK, here's the plan!" Captain America summed up. "Bacchus, Maui, Thor, and Vision, you go help Reptil! Everyone else, evacuate anyone in the center or the neighborhood!"
"We're not leaving without Humberto!" The boy insisted. "He's our friend!"
"I'll bring him back, I promise!" Spiderman handed them some communication chips. "Place them behind your ears, go hide as far as you can, and let me know if you can tell me anything that can help him. What's your name?"
"Bruno." The boy accepted the communication chips. "And she's Kamala."
Minutes later
While the others took care of the evacuation, the group in charge of saving Reptil from Kali. The interior was in a mess: staircases covered in debris, doors crushed, a couple windows broken, and what looked like an elevator ripped out of its shaft to be thrown at something. Then came the part where the elevator melted away and an angry Kali stepped out.
"You're only delaying the inevitable, you brat!" Kali shouted at Reptil as he slid down a banister. "I want that amulet of yours!"
"Keep dreaming!" Reptil morphed into a feathered Velociraptor that jumped over the debris and slashed its claws at Kali's face. She bared her own out until the shapeshifting teenager's veins started glowing red and nine more Velociraptors appeared. Five went to bite Kali while the other four went to run off into different locations within the center.
"It appears that the leftovers of the Aether, or the Reality Stone, have fused long enough to give the boy the possibility of bending the realities within his prehistoric metamorphosis to the point of hive-minded multiplication." Vision's explanation earned a lot of confused glances from the men.
"Reptil can clone himself into a pack of dinosaurs and increase the pack's social tactics to attack Kali and distract her," Spiderman explained. "One of the Velociraptors that fled is obviously him."
"You and I will distract Kali while Vision and the demigods go after Reptil," Thor said. Just as the group split, Kali had swiped her hand at the dinosaurs, turning them to dust. Thor tried to take the opportunity of shooting a blast of lightning at her, but Kali raised her hands in the air and summoned a wall of lava to block the lightning. Spiderman shot a series of webbing at her, but she caught it all in one arm, wrapped it around like cotton candy, and tossed it at Spiderman. He was lucky enough to dodge it, because with the strength she was using, her webbing ball broke a column. Thor sent her all the lightning he could summon with his bare hands, she blocked them with her numerous arms… and found herself electrocuted by the webbing that tied her up. Good thing that Spiderman took the time of creating electrical current substances within his webbing, and Thor's lightning drove her into an unconscious state.
"Do you find this a bit too easy?" Spiderman asked.
"I'm afraid so…" The ground underneath them shook. Thor lifted Spiderman out of the way as the floor exploded and water exploded out. Vision and Bacchus were running for it while Maui was using his fishhook to muzzle a Mosasaurus. The beast finally tossed Maui off and had to deal with Bacchus summoning vines to hold him down, only to convert into a Brachiosaurus that chewed through the vines and grabbed a hold of them to swing Bacchus into a column. Vision shot a beam at him, but Reptil morphed into a Pteranodon to fly around and all it took was one beak peck at the Mind Stone to put Vision in pain. Fortunately, Spiderman caught him with his webbing before he could fall.
"What happened?"
"Iron Man… forgot that there was one more person who hadn't left the bathrooms yet. Reptil picked up her blood… He couldn't resist…" Speaking of the devil, he had now transformed into a T-Rex and was stomping his way towards Kali.
"NO!" Spiderman swung himself to land between the goddess and the dinosaur. "HUMBERTO, DON'T DO THIS!"
"Go away! I want blood!" The T-Rex protested. Normally, Spiderman would geek out at the idea of seeing an extinct animal talk, but this wasn't the time. He took off his mask to reveal his face, causing the dinosaur to soften his tooth-clenching mouth. "Peter?"
"Humberto, you gotta stop! Kali is after the thing that makes you special and use it for evil! I should know, she recently tried to make me evil, but a friend helped me out! I'm here for you, Humberto… Please, don't eat her…" Peter raised his hand and waited. The adults present feared that he'd lose a hand, but the T-Rex merely rubbed its massive head on his head before turning back into a teenager.
"Peter…" Humberto sobbed. "I'm so sorry, I can't control the bloodthirst…"
"I was counting on it." Just like that, Kali woke up and ripped through the webbing. Peter didn't get a chance to react as Kali trapped him in her arms while using a spare hand to threaten his neck with a knife. "Let's hope your friend isn't hungry anymore, child. I'd hate to see my favorite puppet get eaten alive!"
"Kali!" The others rushed to help them, but Kali summoned volcanic rocked hands to trap the two Avengers and demigods, unabling them to assist in the fight.
"Here's what will happen, Reptil!" Kali declared. "Surrender the gift of your amulet or I'll make sure that Spiderman will be your last meal as a humanitarian dinosaur!"
"I can't… The bone is permanently fused to my body, I can't remove it…" Reptil shook his head. "But if you spare him, I know how you could get what you want."
"Which is the bone?"
"Which is the power in it. Surely you can extract the power in it and transfer it into something else?"
"So, you would keep the trinket on your skin but allow me to extract its power?"'
"I've done the math. I spent years with the relic on me, it's given enough time for my cells to copy its capacities. But the power your seeking, the thing that gives me useless adrenaline and bloodthirst, you can take it."
Kali frowned. "Are you an only child?"
"Technically. I had stillborn brother who passed years before me. Why…" Reptil didn't get the chance to finish his sentence. Kali had pushed Spiderman aside and sunk five of her claws into the red crystallized fossil on the teenager's chest. Thor could hear the familiar hissing of the Aether in its disposed remains as it was absorbed out of the relic and into a motion orb that floated in Kali's grasp. When she let go of Reptil, he clenched his fists and looked relieved when they morphed into Velociraptor arms. He grabbed Spiderman and tried to make a run for it until Kali summoned her volcanic rocks to trap them as well.
"Consider yourself lucky that you're a second born, mortal," Kali said as she admired the red substance. "Once Seth unleashes the final plague that will kill all firstborns, the new world will need chaotic monsters like you. I'll give you this substance back once he's done with it!"
"Give it back?" Bacchus choked through his restrains. "What are you going to do with your host for the locust plague?"
Kali laughed so hard, nearly every spare pillar in the convention center collapsed. "You still don't get it, do? The countries he attacked to prepare the world for the final plague, the people he had specifically captured for hosts, our escape, his choice of words, and all the attacks? How is it now that you haven't figured out that after easily saving the lives of eight hosts, the last two plagues are more of symbols than reincarnations?"
"Indeed."
A green glow appeared on one of the pillars and Kaïra Lokisia, in her venom green Asgardian and Jotun armored glory, appeared. A hurt look appeared on Thor. "Tell me you didn't…"
"Didn't what? I'm not your niece begging for His pardon across the ocean." Kaïra Lokisia continued walking towards Kali. "I came to take up your offer, Kali."
"You can't be serious!" Maui shouted. "There's no way that Kory's evil personality just escaped her tri-conscious to team up with Seth!"
"I'm not." Kaïra's words made the air colder in the center.
"But she makes my job easier. I need anyone to mark the ninth plague, and Kaïra is already a walking plague, a burden from the past, a barbarian waiting to break free from her chains and wreak havoc like the malevolent, mischievous…" Kali said.
"Start comparing to him and I will break your arms," Kaïra warned.
Kali chuckled. "I ADORE your bloodlust! So genuine! But a deal is a deal, spiteful spirit from Loki's offspring." The goddess held up the floating red substance. "With the disposed but capable leftovers of the Aether, form of the Reality Stone, I will bend reality and untether you from the mind of Kory Ikolson! Her mind will no longer be your prison to return to after every terrestrial visit! You will be endlessly free to purge mortals and immortals alike with your chaotic tricks and malice and punish any surviving lineage of those who have caused you endless years of suffering, starting with the God of Mischief, who was responsible for the murder of your mother!"
"DON'T!" Thor begged, but Kali continued.
"Consider yourself untethered!"
Kali tossed the red substance and Kaïra. The evil entity screamed as the red substance went through her veins and emitted glowing flashes that filled the center with shredding sounds and agonizing screams. After at least thirty seconds of being engulfed in red magic, everything disappeared and revealed a taller Kaïra with a venom green full-body armor and black cape. Her skin and eyes were now in the appearance of her Jotun heritage, her nails paler than death, and her smile more sadistic than ever. "I am free…"
"Free to fulfill our agreement," Kali nodded. "Freed of Kory Ikolson and free to hunt down and murder Loki in the matter of time left before the final plague is released. All Seth wants in return… is for you to bring Marion Romanson alive and in one piece to Seth."
Naturally, the news alarmed all the good guys in the room.
"Five minutes to find her, five minutes to have some fun, and ten minutes to freeze her like Captain America and deliver her to Egypt," Kaïra sneered.
In DC
It was a miracle that Anubis had managed to recover overnight. He and Marion, along with Horus and the Divine Motherly Trio, transported themselves above the new location of GAMA in the National Mall. Naturally, they were surprised to see Aaricia and Loki waiting at the fountain in the Sculpture Garden, but they were more surprised by what Aaricia had to say.
"You can't be serious." Anubis shook his head.
"What, the part of where Kory actually got forgiveness from Him or that for once, she actually listened to me and agreed to have a proper, civilized conversation with Reindeer Games?" Aaricia pointed her thumb at Loki.
"Why the nickname?" He begged.
"I don't care if Stark made it up, I say we pay for the copyright and create a brand! Seriously, I can see it now. 'I Am Reindeer Games' T-Shirts…"
"Forget T-Shirts, Aaricia," Marion waved off the topic. "Why is it now that Kory throws the towel after a century of throwing tables at Loki? Literally."
Hera looked around the Sculpture Garden, frowning at the different tourists who dipped their feet in the pool. "This may seem kind of random, but I'm wondering why after 24 hours and with Kory being away again, Kaïra hasn't appeared once."
"Relax, Loki took me on a quick round trip to the Asgardians' spaceship to lock up the Tesseract. There's no way she'd pickpocket it out of him again… I think…" Aaricia's voice faltered when she noticed something white falling from the sky. "Oh no…"
Many tourists actually took the initiative of making a run for it, but some were just too dumb to move. Hera reacted first by summoning peacock feather-shaped force fields to protect civilians as the crash suddenly froze the fountain. The moment she disabled the shields to let the people run, everyone pulled out their weapons. When the frost cleared, Kaïra stepped out, terrifying them in her new, permanent armored Jotun form.
"We're dead," Loki declared.
"Huh, Aaricia? Remind me again how often your sister pops out her Frost Giant thing in public?" Marion pointed her crossbow at Kaïra.
Only Aaricia didn't dare to pull out her weapon first. "Hi, Kaïra…" She tried to remain calm.
"You pulled a nasty trick on me in Istanbul, sweetie." The rocky ground turned into glacier ice the moment Kaïra put her foot out of the fountain.
"You never call me 'sweetie' and you know I couldn't let you murder Loki," Aaricia continued. "What happened to you? You look like Mr. Hyde after he split up with Dr. Jekyll in the season five finale of Once Upon A Time."
"I know, right? I got untethered from Kory! I am my own independent monstrosity filled with rage and ice! But don't worry, the good news is that I still love you very much."
"I love you too."
"The bad news, Seth's really in a rush to unleash his final plague and I don't want to disappoint Kali for making me number nine." Kaïra held out her right arm and it morphed into a perfectly sculpted ice ax. "If I want to ensure that I have enough hours to turn Loki's head into a trophy, I got to bring Redhead Katniss in an ice cube!"
"Diplomacy's dead, dunces!" Ishara smashed the ground with her fists, summoning massive scorpions of stone to charge at Kaïra, who retaliated by summoning a snowy wind that turned into impaling stalactites falling from the sky. While the scorpions were brutally impaled, everyone made a run for it while Isis cast a spell to turn the solid pathways of the Sculpture Gardens into quicksand.
"If anybody has a genius plan on how we can deal with my sister's evil personality trying to kidnap my childhood friend for a divine homicidal maniac, speak now!" Aaricia shouted as they made a run for the National Mall.
"Illusions!" Loki offered. "I can create illusionary duplicates of Anubis' host and we'll just have to split in order to goad Kaïra!"
"OK. You and Aaricia take on the Lincoln Memorial, Hera and Isis take on the botanical gardens, Horus and Ishara take the American History Museum, and Marion and I will hide in the National History Museum!" Anubis ordered. "If anyone wants to complain, say it now!" An explosion of blue fire erupted, creating massive glass spikes that grew over the Sculpture Gardens. Loki didn't blink and clasped his hands together. Yellow and green lights flashed as three duplicates of Marion popped out of thin air and moved with the assigned groups. While everyone ran to their assigned targets, Aaricia whistled to summon Fjordson, who sprung out of the fountain by the Capitol and grew to his majestic form to dash at Aaricia. She managed to pull herself, Loki, and the clone onto Fjordson's back as he galloped towards the Lincoln Memorial.
"This is probably the second most weirdest thing I've ever indulged in my life!" Loki shouted over the wind.
"What was number one?" Aaricia shouted back.
"Ask Valkyrie!"
Fjordson finally got them to the Lincoln Memorial, where they jumped off his back. Tourists ran away as fast as they could, probably because Loki stood on the steps.
"What am I going to do? I can't fight Kaïra!" Aaricia protested.
"You'd think that her being untethered to Kory would make matters easier…" Loki grumbled.
"I care about Kory for EVERYTHING!" Aaricia snapped at him, probably making it the first time she displayed her angry side at him. "I don't care if it's her daddy issues side, her drunk side, the wild party side, the evil side, the I'm-hopelessly-crushing-on-Captain-America side, the overprotective side, the magical side, or any other side, I can't destroy any part of Kory! I don't want to keep SOME parts of her, I WANT EVERYTHING! She's my sister!"
Loki sighed. "You sound just like your ancestor the first time we fought…"
They got interrupted by ice boulders coming from the sky and aiming right at them. The group made a run up the steps but a giant wall of ice blocked the entrance. Aaricia used her sword to create a lightning blast that holed up the ice so people trapped inside could escape. A boulder fell down, crushing the clone of Marion into oblivion.
"That clone didn't even last ten minutes!" Aaricia exclaimed.
"Why do you try to hurt me, sweetie?" The ice boulders rolled upward, crushing the steps, and merged together to create a floating head of Kaïra sculpted out of ice and speaking.
"I'm not the one hurting anyone, but you're trying to kill my uncle and kidnap my friend!" Aaricia threw her sword at the head. Ice shards fell everywhere.
"Illusionary magic…" Loki stared at the National Mall. Ice exploded from the direction of the Botanical Gardens and the American History Museum. "She knows where they are… and that Anubis lied."
"The son of a bitch!" Aaricia cussed.
Meanwhile
Loki had accurately predicted that Anubis had lied on where he and Marion were really.
Though they did go to the National History Museum, all Anubis did was evacuate everyone and animate two statues to pose as them while the duo actually fled through the back entrance and Marion got a ride on jackal-formed Anubis all the way across town. Due to what happened at the museum, people at the Smithsonian Zoo did the smart move of evacuating everyone. By the time they got there, the whole area was empty. Anubis carried Marion all the way to the Reptile House, where he morphed back into his human form and gently placed Marion on the ground.
"This is happening… My… Seth… DAMN IT!" Anubis created a crater as he punched the wall. The crocodiles fled under their waters in fear.
"Anubis…"
"NOW YOU KNOW WHY I DIDN'T WANT TO GET SO CLOSE TO YOU! I TRIED KEEPING MY PROMISE, AND LOOK WHERE WE ARE!" Anubis yelled at her. "HE'S USING YOU AGAINST ME, HE KNOWS I WON'T ATTACK IF HE PHYSICALLY THREATENS YOU, HE…" Anubis dropped on his knees and cried. "I just wanted a life… I just wanted you…"
Marion caressed him on the head. "If I don't make it out, Anubis, you can always bring me back."
"I don't want you to… I…" Anubis was breaking down.
"Seth won't last. We will…" Marion tried to continue motivating.
"But the plague…" He stopped sobbing, but the expression he gave was still tear jerking.
"You'll stop him. C'mon." Marion pulled him back up on his feet. "You're Anubis, the god of mummification and the guardian of the Eye of Ra. You got more game than he does."
Anubis sighed. "Your over the top confidence plagues me."
"And so do your insecurities to me…" Marion reached out and gently stroked his cheek with her fingers. Anubis just couldn't hold it back anymore. He let out an overly smitten smile as he held her hand and placed a small kiss on her palm.
"You two gross me out with your re-enactment of the Titanic."
Marion and Anubis took their stances when they realized that Kaïra had caught up to them faster than anticipated. They stood ready as both of her hands radiated with ice magic.
"You know, they never said how far I could go with my ice cubes…"
MUCH later
Seth tapped his fingers on the cold surface that used to be his brother's old throne, now corrupted into his own, personal dark throne. Things were ready. He and Quetzalcoatl were close to done with the final touches to the final plague. His new dynasty was ready to begin, he could sense it as the pyramid aboveground shook. The lockdown procedures would soon begin.
His minions opened the door, letting in the group of people. Kaïra Lokisia, in her smug victorious appearance, walked ahead to Seth as Quetzalcoatl and Kali pushed forward two perfectly square ice cubes. Each ice cube held unique prizes: the petrified Anubis and Marion Romanson both bearing horrified expressions. While the other two gods were silent, Seth got off his throne to get closer and marvel at his prizes.
"It took my minions and the three bloodiest gods on Earth A WEEK to get me my plagues whereas you brought my biggest prizes in twenty minutes…" Seth told Kaïra with prize.
"When I'm given the right prize…" Kaïra shrugged.
"And the prize you shall receive. Now that you are untethered from the demigoddess and you have delivered more than I wanted, I shall grant you 36 hours to hunt and kill Loki before I unleash my final plague."
"I thank you highly." Kaïra didn't even bother curtsying: she immediately transformed into a flurry of snow that flew away from here.
"Milord…" Kali began.
"Now you see why I trusted that deranged being more than you two for speeding things up?" Seth snapped. "Ensure that you don't fail me in the next 36 hours, otherwise I'll see if you happen to be firstborns when I expose you to the outer surface!" After receiving terrified nodding from them, Seth punched both ice cubes with his fists, creating heat waves that quickly melted in ice. The two captives landed in cold puddles, shivering as if death was in their bones. Anubis hugged himself and looked up to see the source of his nightmares staring down at him.
"Hello, son."
And naturally, the captives were struck on the head, knocked unconscious.