Hey, what's this? A new chapter of Thorns? A new RWBY fluff fic? No! It's Gods Among Women, my latest story, and one I hope to have succeed Thorns of a Rose as my next big story!
In this story, Team RWBY discovers a rune detailing the location of a sacred, powerful stone that is said to amplify the soul-based abilities of those who wield it. Meanwhile, the Infinity Stone, or the Soul Stone, has been discovered as well by the Avengers and the Nova Corps, who also race to find it and acquire it. But they aren't the only ones after the Soul Stone.
I hope to have this become Thorns' successor, so I hope you guys enjoy it, and after that, go ahead and jump right into it!
p.s. Undertones of Freezerburn because that is my RWBY OTP, and you may notice that The Hulk is in this story, too. I realize he disappears after AOU, but in this continuum Hulk is still an Avenger and Pietro/Quicksilver does not die. Other than that, I have nothing else to say.
Infinity Stones each have their own unique powers, and exist in many corners of the universe. The Avengers have acquired the Mind Stone, a powerful, sentient stone with the ability to control the very thoughts of any mortal, courtesy of the Vision, on planet Earth. The Tesseract, an infinite power source once in the hands of the Nazi regime, now lies in the hands of Asgard, thanks to Thor. The Aether, a destructive, symbiotic stone with multiple forms, is now held by the Collector, in Knowhere. The Orb is in the safe hands of the Nova Corps, thanks to the Guardians of the Galaxy.
There are six stones, but very few know where they are and fewer still have the ability to wield them. Some believe one is floating in the vacuum of space, protected by a black hole from which nothing escapes. And the other...
Well, not many have been found for the sole reason that they never should be found. But there are always people who find them regardless of this.
On the planet of Remnant, the Soul Stone has rested for millennia, untouched by the dangerous and murderous hands of the feared Thanos. The Soul Stone, within its hidden resting place, grants the inhabitants of its home the power to use Semblances and Aura. Some on Remnant know of a legendary gem that, when wielded, grants the user an exponential increase in the power of their own soul. But not many have found it, and fewer still could hope to touch it.
But in this prophecy, many believe that with fame and fortune and the infinite power that comes with the Stone, misfortune and ruin follow soon behind...
"Now, class, we must remain vigilante here," Professor Goodwitch blathered on as she always did whenever there was exploring to be done, waving her riding crop about like a wand, "Be careful! This temple is heavily laden with traps. Use your eyes well in this temple. Only you will see the trap before you fall for it."
Yang sighed. She hated it when the professors did this.
She wandered into a separate room, following her teammates more or less, but not with any given direction. She was just winging it.
"This place is weird," Yang heard Blake say, and Yang looked over at her.
"Why?"
"I feel like I'm passively using my Semblance. Don't you? Every time I wave my hand, it leaves behind my afterimage."
Yang shrugged. Her Semblance was passive anyway; she wouldn't know the difference.
"One more thing, class!" Goodwitch announced, and all eyes were on her, "You may notice that some of your Semblances are active without your urging. This temple has been known to grant increased power to those who use their Semblances. Be careful; you may destroy the building if you are not."
The class split up and Yang joined her team, her gauntlets unfolding just in case any Grimm wound up arriving.
Goodwitch had taken the class on a field trip to a temple in some secluded part of Mistral's jungles called the Soul Peak. The temple located there had supposedly been one of the first constructed by Remnants, and Doctor Oobleck chose to come along for the knowledge possibly contained in the temple itself.
As fascinating as it wasn't, Yang found herself watching Blake with amusement as she kept peeking over her shoulder, watching her own afterimage travel behind her. It was like she was a living blur.
Ruby, however, could not be seen. She was so fast, even slow walking seemed like a jog for her. She, like Blake, was a blur, but in fast forward instead of slow motion.
"HeyYang," Ruby blurted, sounding higher-pitched, her speech sped up tenfold, "CanyouunderstandwhatI'msayingrightnow?"
"Wh-what?" Yang stuttered, surprised by her sister's unnaturally quick talking.
"MySemblanceiscrazyfastrightnow!" Ruby blinked out of existence for a split second before reappearing in front of Yang again. "Didyouseethat? IbetyoudidnotseethatI'mwaytoofast! Ormaybeyou'reinslowmotion! Everybodyisreallyslowtomerightnow!"
Yang let her sister "walk" away as her nonsensical babbling became too fast for anyone to hear, and she began to explore.
"So let me get this straight, Tony. You found the location of another Infinity Stone on another planet, and you want us to go get it?"
Agent Clint Barton looked out the window for a moment before looking back at the multi-billionaire.
"If we can get this, it will show whatever has been giving me these nightmares that we Avengers are not to be taken lightly, and that Earth will not be destroyed by some megalomaniac in a metal suit," Tony Stark replied with a tone of urgency in his voice.
"Right," Hawkeye replied cynically, "Right, because a megalomaniac in a metal suit is just what we need to fight another megalomaniac in a metal suit."
Stark thought for a second, realizing he had walked right into a verbal trap.
"I'm not kidding, Stark," Clint added, pointing a finger outside the tower window, "Every time you get involved, this—" the archer gestured to the entirety of New York City, "—Gets put in danger!"
"If I don't get involved and we don't grab that Stone before it's too late, more than THIS is going to be in danger," Tony argued, looking toward the stars of the night sky, or, more specifically, in the direction of the planet on which he detected the Infinity Stone's energy signature.
"Something is out there," the Iron Man continued, making a hand gesture for Friday, his latest AI assistant, to bring up his telescope, "And we've seen its hand in everything we have fought. Cap saw it with HYDRA. So did my father. Thor saw it with the Aether, with the dark elves. I saw it with Ultron. Something is out there, and it wants the Stones."
Stark positioned the telescope toward the planet several hundred lightyears away, a planet very similar to Earth, a planet that was some remnant of a once massive solar system, now the only planet in the whole system still intact. He chose to name it Remnant.
"If you won't help me, then I'll do this myself," Stark said, turning to the apt archer and giving him a look of great need, "But for the sake of my conscience I cannot just stand here with my thumb up my ass watching some celestial madman destroy everything I've worked so hard to protect."
Clint stood completely still, just watching the Iron Avenger with a mask of indifference before nodding.
"You're right. The Stone needs to be secured. But how do we get to it? You said that planet was fifty thousand lightyears away. If I'm not mistaken, it would take us a few thousand years to get there."
Stark smiled. "Remember that generator that Loki used to set up the Chitauri invasion?"
Clint shot him a look. "You aren't saying..."
"You're right, I'm not saying that," Tony gestured to a window behind Clint, and it lit up with a diagram of something that looked very similar to a Chitauri warship, but with more...Iron Man.
"What is that?" Clint inspected the diagram closely, unable to comprehend the terms used in the blueprint.
"That...is our key to getting to Remnant," Stark grinned with his "ha-ha-I-made-this-and-you-didn't" smile and slapped Clint on the back, "That thing uses a copy of the generator to create a portal that will open up at the coordinates I put into it."
"So...hyperspeed?" Clint wondered in amazement.
"More like a warp drive," Tony said, "Sorry, Clint, but Star Trek is a little bit more attainable for me than Star Wars." The multibillionaire walked back toward the tower balcony entrance, still facing Clint.
"I'll have Friday call up the others," Tony said finally, Clint still standing and watching the diagram as the mechanist spoke, "It's time the Avengers assemble again."
"Groot! You can have at it with my flower pot later! I've got a call from Nova Corps!"
The tree man sighed as Peter Quill rushed past him and into the communication room of the Milano, the signature ship of Starlord, the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Whose name, coincidentally, was also Peter Quill.
Quill hit the "accept call" button on the screen, and a bust of the Nova Corps commander began to hover above the holotable.
"Hello?" Peter greeted the woman less than formally.
"Starlord, thank the stars you picked up your communicator," the commander seemed relieved that he was there, but Peter Quill refused to let it be known he was too chicken to pick up a phone call that wasn't technically a phone call.
"Well, I, uh, have a track record for picking up every single call I get," Peter smiled awkwardly at the woman.
"If possible, I need you and your fellow Guardians to come to our command building within the next few hours," the commander stated blandly, "We have a mission we would like you to undertake for us."
"If we gettin' paid, then you get the goods!" The cyborg raccoon named Rocket shouted from another room, and Quill sighed.
"We will negotiate compensation when you arrive," Nova Prime finished, "We will see you when you arrive."
The holotable switched off, and Peter sighed. At least something eventful could be happening soon, considering nothing had happened in the months since Ronan the Accuser's downfall.
"Alright, everybody!" Starlord descended the stepladder into the hull of the ship, finding Gamora, Drax and Rocket inside. Groot was upstairs, but leaning down into the hole to hear his leader.
"We are heading to Xandar to talk to the Nova Corps. They have a job for us. We'll talk about payment later. Everybody get ready to go, because we'll be there in an hour."
The rest of the team nodded their replies and Starlord climbed back up the ladder and headed to the cockpit, where he seated himself at the controls and activated the hyperdrive, coordinates pointing toward Xandar.
"So, have you found anything, ice queen?" Yang wondered, peeking over Weiss's shoulder.
"No," Weiss scowled, turning to Yang and surprising the blonde with her eyes. Her irises contained small glyphs, with minute and hour hands rotating around her dilated dot of a pupil, "But I may be onto something here."
"Weiss, your eyes..."
"Are glyphs? Yes, I know. My skin is marked with them right now. Once we leave the temple, they'll go away. Your eyes are red, by the way."
Yang lifted an eyebrow. Must be her Semblance was acting up in here, after all.
"So what is it you found?" Yang wondered, surprised her eyes could be red even without her temper flaring.
"I think I found an old scripture. Right here," Weiss ran a finger along a line of text and read something out loud. "Says here that "the gem of souls grants he who wields it great power, but beware, for there are those who would wish to wield it but yet do not hold the power they yet seek. For them, destruction is their end." Ominous, but interesting."
"I kinda wanna find this gem," Yang said with a greedy smile, "Think we can find it?"
"Puh-leeaaaase. With my brains and your brawn, we can do anything!" Weiss laughed triumphantly. Yang chuckled with her; she didn't really know what it was, but something about Weiss's evil laugh was weirdly...cute...
Yang shook the thoughts out of her head. This was Weiss she was thinking about, not some egotistical seductress!
"It'll be in the center of the temple. No other way it might make sense. Let's go," Weiss commanded her blonde friend, and the two set off in search of the gem.
