"What is this?" Ronan called, stepping toward Clint with an excited face. While he didn't truly know much about the Infinity Stones, Ronan knew one thing. Power called to power and if this Terran responded to an Infinity Stone then he had to be powerful. And now, he was underneath Ronan's control.
Rocket looked to Gamora and Quill before landing on Bucky. From their reactions the raccoon knew they had no idea, except for Bucky. Slowly, he turned his attention back to Ronan. Now he could see why Clint and Bucky had been so concerned about Thanos getting the stone. If that amount of power had just been from one... Imagine what he could do with all of them.
Gamora couldn't help her jaw from dropping. Of all things that she expected Clint to have hidden, she never thought it could have been this. The amount of power that had come from him. It almost felt like it equaled the stone now attached to Ronan's weapon. No wonder why Clint had been so determined to take the Orb and go. It was clear to her now, Clint would be able to stop Thanos from taking the stones. She should have trusted him sooner.
Quill stared in at Clint. Why had he glowed red? Why was he weakened right now? What was happening? As much as he knew that he had needed to in the moment, the man regretted handing over the Orb. He should have fought harder, just waited.
Drax frowned. He understood the power that was now in Ronan's hands. Understood that it was mostly his fault that Ronan had gotten it. But, what happened to Clint? Why did his body react in the way it had? Groot let out a soft whine. He could understand that they were in serious trouble. That much was obvious. But, he had no explanation for what had just happened.
When no one answered his question, Ronan strode forward. As he moved closer both the stone in his rod and the Terran before him started to glow. Clint let out a soft moan as he squeezed his eyes closed. "Please, stop."
"My sister," Natasha/Aether whimpered knowing that Clint wouldn't be able to handle this much longer. His magic may have been attempting to pull it's power but it wasn't enough. The Power Stone's call was too strong and the Aether's strength was growing faster than the archer's body could handle. Then, Clint felt a hand on him. An unfamiliar one. His eyes snapped open as Ronan pulled on him.
"NO!" Bucky screamed in anger as the Kree pulled a still weakened Clint from his grasp. The second Clint was free, Sakaarans swarmed over him. It wasn't long before they overpowered him and slowly they moved the Sergeant backwards, holding him closer to the wall and away from everyone. He struggled hard against them but even with his strength Bucky wasn't strong enough. "Clint!"
"Buck," Clint whispered, looking to his lover as suddenly Ronan shook his. Clint gasped at the sudden motion and he turned to look at the Kree.
"What is this?" Ronan asked for a second time since the Aether made itself known. Clint gritted his teeth, swearing not to speak. Ronan looked to the guardians, specifically at Rocket as he had been the one who answered most of his questions. But, it was clear from that one glance that none of them had a clue as to what had just happened to the archer. Ronan turned back to look at Clint. He leveled his rod at the archer and concentrated on using the Power Stone ever so slightly. As the rod began to glow purple, Clint squeezed his eyes closed even as a red tint appeared around him brighter than before. "WHAT is THIS!"
"STOP!" Bucky roared, throwing off anyone holding him down though for each one he tossed around, two more took their place. Ronan turned his attention to Bucky and then back to Clint. With a small smirk, he aimed his Cosmi-Rod at Bucky. The Sakaarans never even had a chance to escape before Ronan launched an attack. Bucky cried out as he slammed into the wall and a few Sakaarans slammed into him. Clint glanced over even as the Aether attempted to leak out of him. Ronan waited a few seconds more before releasing his power. Bucky and the Sakaarans fell to the floor but only Bucky shifted to look back up at him. Ronan gave him a surprised look. Most people were knocked unconscious from just the rod and that was before the stone that was now attached to it.
"Interesting," he told them, dropping Clint to the floor. Immediately he was swarmed with Sakaarans as Ronan walked off toward Bucky as Clint finally gained control over the Aether and gasped. Bucky crawled back a little bit even as Ronan advanced but then grabbed him by the throat. The Sergeant grabbed his wrist and squeezed, hoping Ronan would let go if he did it strong enough. Screw holding back at this point, Bucky needed to get Clint out of here. Thankfully, his plan worked. Ronan dropped him with a hiss but didn't hesitate to hit Bucky hard with his rod.
"NO!" Clint cried. Ronan turned back to Clint. He narrowed his eyes in contemplation before glancing back at Bucky. It was clear to see now that the two cared deeply for each other and if that was the case, Ronan could use that to his advantage. He leveled the Cosmi-Rod down to Bucky as he stared at Clint.
"Tell me what I want to know," Ronan ordered. Clint narrowed his eyes as Bucky looked up at him. The Sergeant mouthed 'don't do it.' As if sensing that Clint wouldn't answer, Ronan slowly focused on powering the stone in his possession. Hardly a second later, Clint let out a deep groan, curling into himself as much as the Sakaarans allowed. "I will kill him."
"Clint," Bucky warned. There was no way he would allow Clint to admit that the Aether was inside of him. But he also knew that Clint wouldn't let him die, no matter the cost. Not after Natasha and the Soul Stone. Ronan narrowed his eyes before making the power of the stone flair into a bright purple. Clint screamed as red suddenly swept through the room. The Sakaarans that had been holding him flew aside as if Clint had tossed them off and everyone were forced back when the power flowed over them. Ronan dropped his attention on his stone and the two energies faded leaving a very clearly unconscious archer on the ground. "No..."
Ronan sighed. He had gone to far. But that didn't matter. With the power of the stone in his rob Ronan was certain he'd be able to not only destroy Xander but also fight back against Thanos when the Mad Titan came for him. And that wasn't an if, it really was a when. Thanos would come, but Ronan would be ready. In the meantime, Xandar awaited him. He looked to Nebula.
"Keep him separate from them. I'll deal with him later," the Kree ordered before walking toward Clint. The archer clearly was drained. While his body may be holding extreme power it didn't seem like he could handle it. Slowly he turned to look back at Bucky. Of anyone it was obvious that Bucky knew what was going on here. He waited until he was sure Bucky was looking at him and paying attention. As soon as the Sergeant was, Ronan gave him a sickening smirk. "Just note, the longer you don't tell me what I want to know, the more I'll hurt your friend."
"Fuck you," Bucky hissed. The Sakaarans slowly began collecting the guardians and Bucky and Clint. Of course, the guardians (outside of Drax) smartly followed where they where being guided. Bucky kept trying to get to Clint while the archer himself was dragged by a very uncaring Sakaaran. They had only gone down a few hallways before Clint was pushed left while the others were forced right.
"CLINT!" Bucky screamed, spinning to try and get to him but the Sakaarans outnumbered him. Even with his impressive strength, he couldn't get passed them. Not only that, Clint was still unconscious. Trying to hold back the Aether had drained him and Bucky couldn't even imagine the damage he had gone through to hold back as much as he had. From what little he had learned from Loki about the Aether, the amount of power just used could have easily killed Clint if the archer hadn't had the power to absorb magical energy. "Fuck!"
The Sakaarans made some sort of noise at Bucky as they shoved him toward the guardians. He gave one more final attempt at rushing after Clint before giving up. Even if he could get to Clint, he wouldn't be able to get Clint out. In silence he followed the Sakaarans' pushing and pulling on him. Maybe three hallways later, the group was shoved into a cell without the Sergeant. Gamora and Quill spun quickly and attempted to escape even as the cell door slammed shut in their face. Bucky though was led to the cell across the hall. He was shoved in roughly and by the time he turned around the door was closed. With everything squared away the Sakaarans left.
While normally any of the group would love to torment or taunt their captors they seemed to understand this was not the time. This was far more serious and far more deadly than anything they had dealt with before. Ronan was insane and now had powers that very few could withstand. And even then, they all silently knew that Thanos was on his way.
"So... Uh... What was with the red light show?" Rocket asked after something like ten minutes of silence. Bucky frowned, narrowing his eyes a bit at the raccoon. He certainly didn't trust Rocket with any information anymore. Rocket must have realized the same thing as all he did was wince and hunker down a bit. He deserved it.
"I am Groot," Groot muttered, looking down at Rocket with what seemed like a disappointed gaze. Rocket waved a paw at the tree but otherwise said nothing.
"That was indeed another stone, wasn't it?" Gamora grumbled. Bucky grimaced and looked away. As much as he didn't want to admit anything, if Gamora could figure it out then Nebula had to have. And if his knowledge on the stones were right, Ronan had to have some sort of idea as to what was going on with Clint. "Which one?"
"Reality," the Sergeant admitted. Gamora sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead.
"Well, uh. Doesn't that mean that Clint could just change things?" Quill wondered. Bucky huffed a laugh while shaking his head. Of anything, that was the one thing he never thought about. There was just no way it would happen and that was fine with Bucky. He trusted Clint. Trusted their friends. Things would work out sooner or later.
"That's the power of the stone but there is no way he'd do that. He's face a Reality stone before and it didn't go well. His experience with this one so far isn't much better then the first," Bucky explained. Mentally he added the idea that he wasn't sure if Clint would survive the true usage of the Aether's power. So far, most of what everyone had seen was just a quick burst of defense, not the massive power needed to change things. What Ronan had drawn forth was more than Clint had ever dealt with and they could see how it ended. There was no way... "Clint would never use the power. Ever."
"Even if you died?" Rocket countered. Bucky hesitated for a moment. Would Clint use the power if he died? Hell, if he was in Clint's position and Clint died, would he? Honestly, he wanted to say no to both but he wasn't fully sure that was the case for either.
"So... Knowing that we might need Loki's magic at any point in time, the two of you decided to make the tower entirely magic proof?" Phil translated. Loki winced, seeing the flaw with their plan now. He had simply wanted to protect the tower from other outside magical forces that might come from the change in timeline. Not once had he thought about it being turned against them. And he certainly hadn't even thought about the possibility of allowing his own magic to work while blocking others. It had been too dangerous when they first planned it, but now Loki could see how easily it was being used against them.
"Well, we didn't do it to keep him out," Tony grumbled, glancing to Loki for some help. Though it was clear that Loki understood they fucked up and that they fucked up badly. If their plan was thought out a bit better, Loki may have made the protection against all magic outside of Clint's and himself. But that still left the tower open to magical attack from them if something ever happened like before. "It was..."
"Protection. Preemptive protection," Bruce groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose in annoyance. He should have figured that something like this might have happened. Tony was just slightly too paranoid to just leave things be. While the entire idea or preemptive protection was a good idea, Tony never tended to think of how things could go wrong. Cause he also never assumed things would. "Damn it."
"There has to be a way to fix this," Natasha snarled, her arms crossed over her chest to seemingly contain the anger thrumming through her frame. Tony grimaced.
"Without JARVIS, it's gonna be hard. He's the life blood of the tower. I haven't had time to make another AI that can do even a quarter of what J does," Tony explained, waving his hand about. And he had been spending the time to attempt to, even with the fear of Ultron hanging over his head. But, every time he had a minute to work on a new AI, he had been forced to adjust JARVIS to help in another aspect in his life. At this point, JARVIS only needed a physical body to be able to be a full person. Limited in emotions, but still, a full person.
"Is there any chance that JARVIS is-" Phil started to question but stopped when Tony sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair.
"I saved him as much as I could but his code is fucked up pretty bad. It's gonna take a while to fix it all. Longer then any of us would like," the genius admitted, curling in on himself a bit as his mind flashed through the idea of having lost JARVIS forever. It wasn't like there was a way he could have CTRL-S on him. JARVIS's codes and information changed something like every second and at lot of it was stored on multiple servers. His core code had just happened to have been stored in the spot that Ultron had attacked. Almost like Ultron had somehow known. Steve pursed his lips.
"So, how are we going to get out of here?" Steve asked, moving on from the issue of Tony and Loki attempting protection that now had them trapped. Tony frowned, looking to the Captain as he debated how best to answer this. "I mean, you had to have had some sort of back up in case JARVIS ever went down... Right?"
"Uh," Tony started before shaking his head no. There were separate programs that could run most of the systems within the tower. Each one complicated and far easier to access and mess with then JARVIS himself. And while, yes, Tony will be activating them, none of them ran security. Only JARVIS had been made for that. "JARVIS's system was designed to be the best in the world. He actively could fight hackers and has done so many times. Basically, he should have been indestructible."
"So, you wanted a back up plan against magic but there was no back up for JARVIS," Phil retorted partly in disbelief. Tony winced, looking to the floor as he realized how all that sounded. JARVIS was one-of-a-kind state-of-the-art system. There should have been a way to keep the AI safe. Tony should have made a way to keep JARVIS safe. But, he hadn't and he wasn't even all that sure that the bits he had collected would be anywhere near what JARVIS had been. Bruce huffed, placing a hand on Tony's shoulder. As much as he hated thinking about it, Tony was doing good work. He had done everything right. There is just no way someone can predict every outcome. Especially if you didn't know all the pieces.
"The back-ups that are in place, should have kicked in by now. When Ultron took down JARVIS, he took down everything. Every electronic lock, every security measure, everything. We are completely locked out of the system. Fixing JARVIS should be a main step to do as he can seriously help with fighting Ultron, he has done so before. But, Tony and I can also work a bit on undoing the security systems so we can leave," Bruce informed. Over the years he had stayed in the tower both before and now, Bruce knew a great deal about how it all worked. Even if it wasn't exactly like how it had been the first time around, there shouldn't be that much of a change now.
"Okay. Get to work on getting us out. The rest of us, we'll try and figure out how to get some sort of communication out to the rest of the world. Hopefully this can all be resolved quickly," Phil darkly sighed.
Things are going well so far. Hurt my shoulder and the x-ray doc says it's 'unremarkable...' Like seriously? Not just 'normal.' No, unremarkable... Yeah, thanks doc.
Darius is good. Had fun this week going to see AEW. He was surprisingly good that night other than wanting to go to the bathroom a bit too often. And even more surprising, he behaved the next day with lack of sleep. Well, then again. He slept most of the afternoon away. And I did too, lol. Poor hubby had to do a double shift that same day so he didn't get the same amount of rest. Hopefully he had enough today cause he had the day off.