Chapter Twenty-Nine: All We Do Is Smash, Smash, Smash, No Matter What
Hiro was so done with stairs. Just done. Why were there so many of them?! His mouth was hanging open and his little pink tongue was dry from his panting even before he got close to the top of the tower. But he got there, at least, and it was a great point to see whatever was happening outside, even better than the lower – but still high – floors. After taking a well-deserved second to catch his breath by the stairway's opening, he bounded towards the floor-to-ceiling glass on the far side of the room. The windows blended almost seamlessly into the doors to the deck, a curved walkway with its own transparent railings. Not that he really registered any of that, Hiro actually stared right through it all at the streams of electricity lighting up the Chrysler across the way.
It was impossible to miss. Lightning crackled around its antennae and down the sides, creating an amazing show of bolts like the one on his ear, the one previously on his forehead. At the very top, a figure stood out, not because of his flashy armor, but because he was darker than the surrounding energy. Thor's hammer was raised high above his head as it channeled an insane amount of power down from the encroaching clouds and used the top of the building as a sort of lightning rod. The light reflected up to the roiling portal and zapped a pair of skrewt-things about to swim – or was it fly? – out of space into the city, effectually blocking passage through the hole. Smaller explosions failed to reveal the opposite side of the interspatial doorway when Chitauri-carrying chariots crashed into the dead bodies of the monsters still caught in the free-floating nothingness of space.
The kit finally tore his eyes away from the spectacle to take a real look around the floor he was on. The floor plan was mostly open and unfurnished due to the newness of the tower, though the bar off to the side was fully stocked. A rather ugly desk sat on his right with a bunch of crates that held Merlin knew what by a raised walkway leading in from the Iron Man landing pad. There were lights and plants and probably a hippogriff-load of technology embedded in the walls – and everything else – that he didn't understand. The floors were smooth, cool concrete beneath his paws and the overall feel of the open floorplan could go either way, futuristic or rustically homey, depending on the furniture when it was put in.
Surprisingly, it was mostly untouched, not including the person-sized hole in the window that he had somehow missed beforehand. Oh, and there was another one, off of the side of the person-hole, but rounder. Suddenly, his green irises were yanked away from his study of the jagged glass by something he never in his life – this one or past – thought he would see.
A great jade behemoth.
A Norse Viking with a hammer.
A giant flying space worm.
The Hulk and Thor were on the back of one of those skrewt-monsters that had just gone shooting rapidly past the windows of Stark Tower. The two were effectively surfing the giant alien while bashing the foot soldiers' heads in.
Merlin's pants, this world was mad.
Sometimes he was still waiting for someone to pop up with a video camera and tell him that they were yanking his wand, that it was just all a big joke. But no, Hiro really was sitting in a billionaire superhero's tower in the body of a cat, watching an alien invasion of New York City. And yep, there was one of the people fighting the alien invasion on a building across the block, shooting them with a bow and arrow of all things.
Hawkeye never missed a shot as he watched the archer take down Chitauri after Chitauri. Sometimes he wasn't even looking at his target and other times he'd aim away and let the slipstream of a chariot do the rest. As Hiro watched, the blonde's head turned abruptly to watch a pair of extraterrestrial vehicles streak through the city. The one farther behind was shooting at the first, though not with very good aim, and the first seemed to be Natasha-freaking-Romanoff with a dead alien body slumped over the controls. The arrow nocked in Hawkeye's bow followed them until it was finally released as they passed Stark Tower and the kit could see the second rider clearly.
Loki. He growled in the back of his throat. The rumbling intensified when the god of mischief caught the arrow launched his way, then abruptly cut off when it exploded in his face. It would've turned into a smug purr had he not been preoccupied with scrambling backwards and tripping over his own four feet as Loki flew off his craft and through the outer rail of the balcony. Hiro dashed behind a crate and peeped out before scrabbling his way up to the elevated walkway. Virescent eyes peered between slats in the solid railing just in time to see a very large, very green blur crash through the other side of the deck and what was left of the windows. Loki smashed into the wall and left a dent at least half a foot deep as the Hulk pounded his fists on the ground like an angry gorilla.
"ENOUGH!" the snakelike Asgardian screamed once he got his feet under him. His tone made even the Hulk pause. "You are, all of you, beneath me! I AM A GOD, YOU DULL CREATURE, AND I WILL NOT BE BULLIED BY—" And then his legs were swept from under him, the verdant goliath grabbing one of his legs and slamming him into the floor repeatedly. Once on the right. Thud. Twice in front. Thud-thud. A pause as the beast considered his prey. Then twice more in front before he was thrown away in a crater on the right.
The Hulk stalked away, rage-filled as usual, and shot back, "Puny god." He continued out of the building, somehow not noticing the small bundle of fur rolling on the floor laughing at the sentiment. Hiro's eyes were watering with how hard he was laughing, something that only increased exponentially when his pointed ears caught the pathetic whine that Loki made from his hole in the floor.
… yes, that chapter title just happened. I honestly don't know where it came from (I kind of hate that song) and I facepalmed after I wrote it. So many regrets…
I just had to include the "Puny god" scene, it's probably the best part of the whole movie. And since it's so short, y'all are getting double the chapters today! Yep, that's right you beautiful fan-people! Enjoy Chapter Thirty!
…
Just gimme a second…
Lucky (will answer reviews at the end of Chapter Thirty, have patience)
And happy Pride Month everybody!