New chapter coming in hot, brace yourselves!
PREVIOUSLY
That anticipation and worry grew as Bruce's labored growling turned into pained screams, growing louder and louder.
He gripped his gloved hand hard and held it up high, letting out one more painful cry before...
[SNAP]
Everything went white.
The power went away and Bruce went limp and fell to the floor, the Gauntlet fell from his hand on account of the power of the Stones having completely scorched his arm and diminishing it in size a little.
The room brightened up as the doors and windows slid back open and everyone ran to Bruce.
"Don't move him!" Viv ordered, running off to go get some supplies.
Betty had knelt down and cradled the Green Avenger's head, a few tears of worry escaping her eyes.
"Did it work?" Bruce groaned.
"We don't know," Betty cooed, cradling his head. "Shh, shh, it's okay. Easy."
Viv soon returned with a small silver cylindrical device which was actually a dispenser. Placing it over his arm, Viv pressed a small button on the side of it and released a mixture of antibiotics and a coolant to preserve it all along his arm up to his shoulder.
As she did this, Scott walked over into another room as the doors opened and observed the outside through a window. A bright ray of sunshine began to poke through the clouds outside, cute birds were chirping and flying around in the sunlight. It was...beautiful.
Something that hadn't been seen in a long time, and here it was.
Cassie and PJ walked up alongside the father and smiled at the sight. It had been so long since they, or at least Cassie, had seen it.
"Wow!" PJ whispered in awe.
"I think it worked!" Cassie said with excitement to her dad.
"I think it did, Peanut," their father replied with a smile.
Meanwhile, the others were still tending to Bruce when Peter's neck hairs when up. His "tingly" feeling he got sometimes had kicked in.
He turned around and as soon as he did, his phone, which sat on a nearby table began to vibrate. Someone was calling him. Curious, Peter walked over to check but his breath hitched at the sight of the Caller ID.
(May)
With shaky nerves, he hit 'Answer' and brought the phone to his ear. "Hello?" He called, his voice a little hoarse from the surprise.
"Peter?"
At that, he gasped and staggered a little. It was her! It was his aunt May.
"...May?"
"Yes, sweetie! It's me!" She replied, relief in her voice. "Are you okay?"
In shock and awe, Peter fought to make words. "Yeah, I'm fine. I...i-it's really great to hear your voice."
As Peter spoke on the phone, a dark shadow began to cover them, blocking out the sunlight.
Bruce noticed this first. As he looked up, his eyes went wide at the sight of a giant ship in the sky above them. But there was something coming from it.
The whole place shook and blasts of energy from the ship above began raining down on the Compound. Multiple blasts hitting all over the whole perimeter, destroying everything.
Suddenly, the building they were in was hit and all within were caught in the rubble. The ground split open and the floor caved in and all of them went down, separated from each other.
Down below, water had begun to pour into the lower levels of what remained if the compound. It wasn't a lot but it was still coming down.
Bruce, with his one good arm, held up an entire level from crushing him and Rhodey and Rocket. Rhodey was still in his War Machine armor, which had taken a lot of damage thanks to the fall and the mass amounts of rubble crushing on him.
Rhodey's HUD POV
His HUD was beeping and showing a lot of damage to his suit.
"Canopy, canopy, canopy!" He said, activating the suit to open for him.
The suit opened little by little, mostly because it was damaged and couldn't open as good. But it was enough for Rhodey to pull himself out. However, he was still paralyzed and didn't have on his exoskeleton rig to help him stand.
"Ahh, I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" Rocket wheezed in pain. He was trapped underneath a large boulder and couldn't move it.
As Rhodey crawled over to the "raccoon" to help him, Riri, safe and secure in her suit, stumbled towards them with a coughing Betty and an unconscious Bill Foster.
Seeing this, the Colonel began to think. Looking at the hole above, it wasn't too big, but it was enough room to fly out through. For her anyway.
Having set Betty down, Riri was about to run over and try to help the older ones. But Rhodey stopped her. "Riri! Get Betty and Bill outta here!" He ordered.
She stopped at this, but didn't jump to his order. She didn't want to leave them here to die. "But what about you guys?"
"JUST GO!" Bruce roared through his teeth, still holding up the debris.
With that, her faceplate came down and she grabbed Betty by the waist and took Bill's hand. With them in tow, Riri, reluctantly, fired her boot thrusters and flew out through the gaping hole above them.
All the while crying within her helmet and vowing to return.
With her gone, Rhodey now focused on getting Rocket out from under the wreckage. Making a lever put of a stone and a broken steel rod, he pressed down with all his upper body strength and in turn, lifted the debris up just enough for Rocket to scoot put from under before letting it drop.
"Rhodey!" Bruce yelled out to them.
Before they could respond, a wave if water from the lake outside roared in and began to flood the place.
In another part of the rubble, pebbles moved as three figures emerged from it. It was Scott, Cassie and PJ. The had survived the blasts and destruction by shrinking down, therefore not taking on much damage.
"Are you guys alright?" Scott asked them, checking to make sure his kids were well, "Cassie? PJ?"
"All good." Cassie said, rotating her arm to make sure it wasn't broken.
"Same here," PJ added.
As soon as they said this, though, they heard a call from their comrades.
"Mayday, mayday! Does anybody copy? We're in the lower level, it's flooding!"
It was Rhodey! And he sounded hurt.
"Hello?" Was that for them? Again, the call came out.
"We're drowning! Does anybody copy? Mayday!"
"Yes, we-we're here! Can you hear me?" Scott answered.
But they received no reply.
"We gotta go find them." PJ said with urgency.
"Come on!" Cassie said as her wings extended and she flew up, taking her father by the arms and flying off.
PJ too flew right behind them.
Jamie groaned as he slowly came to. The pain in him was slowly going away, but it still hurt nonetheless.
"Hey buddy," A voice called to him. He looked up and saw Peter kneeling above him with a tired smile and holding his father's shield. He set it aside and checked his little brother, bring a hand to his shoulder. "You alright?"
The young Captain groaned a little more but nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."
At that Peter let out a sigh of relief for his little brother. "Phew, good. Also, as a big fan of Captain America, I gotta tell ya, if you lose this again, I'm keeping it." Peter joked as he held up the shield.
Jamie chuckled at that as he looked around. "What happened?" He asked.
"Well," Peter started, "You mess with time, it tends to mess with you back. Just ask Marty McFly and Doc Brown."
Peter helped Jamie up and handed him the shield. Then they walked off to find any others. Soon they came to a bit of a high ledge where Harley and Torunn stood.
"You guys good?" Harley asked them, noticing them.
Peter nodded as he stood next to him. "Yeah, we're fine."
Jamie stood on the other side of Harley, in between him and Torunn. As he and Peter stood with them, they realized that they were staring at something down below.
The young captain followed their gaze and he and Peter soon saw what they were looking at.
In a small clearing down below, sat none other than the Mad Titan himself. Thanos.
"What's he been doing?" Peter asked.
Torunn shrugged and shook her head in reply. "Absolutely nothing."
"Where are the Stones?" Jamie asked.
Harley shrugged and motioned to the mountains of debris that were all around them. "Eh, somewhere under all this. All we know is he doesn't have them."
Jamie looked from Harley back down to Thanos and immediately, an idea came up. "So we keep it that way."
"Keep him occupied long enough til the others are out and the Stones are as far away as possible." Peter added.
"You guys know it's a probably trap, right?" Torunn said matter-of-factly.
"Yeah." Harley replied, bobbing his head a little. "But I don't much care."
Torunn let out a sigh and nodded with determination.
"Good. Just as long we are all in agreement," She stretched out her hands and the sky quickly grew dark with massive grey clouds and thunder began to clap. Suddenly, lightning came down to Torunn and engulfed her. Within it, her casual attire transformed into a white Asgardian armor that matched that of the Valkyries, with a red cape flapping along her back.
Finally, her hands became occupied as her sword, which she had named Sharpious(sharpie-us), Mjolnir and Stormbreaker came to her. She took her sword and placed it in a scabbard on her back, leaving her to hold Mjolnir and Stormbreaker firmly. Now, she was all ready to fight. To face her fear. To face him. "Let's make our parents proud."
The four of them walked down towards Thanos and were joined along the way by Azari, and Ava. As they neared him, they slightly fanned out in front of The Mad Titan. Before they got close though, he began to speak.
"Well, well...the children of the Avengers. Have you come to witness the end of your universe?"
"We've come to accept your surrender!" Torunn answered, just as her father would have.
"Haha, surrender!" Thanos chuckled heartily. "Heavy words from a child."
As he said this, the five had spread out, almost surrounding the Mad Titan, and took their stances.
Thanos was amused, but also intrigued by this.
"You could not live with the failure of your predecessors. And where did that bring you? Back to me. Your parents took the name 'Avengers', meaning they did their best work after the task was done. I like that."
"Do not dishonor our parents' name with your mockery!" Torunn roared with fury in her eyes.
Jamie put a hand on the blonde warrior's shoulder, trying to calm her. "You don't know what you're talking about. The Avengers were there throughout the disasters. They were there at beginning of a problem and fought all the way to the end."
A chuckle came from the Mad Titan. "But I guess this was just too much for them."
"It's not their fault!" Peter stated firmly, "And as one of them used to say, 'If we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure that we'll avenge it.' And that means against people like you."
Thanos, impressed by the courage of this young group, continued. "Then I guess that would make you the young Avengers."
"That would be correct." Azari said.
Technically, they were the 'Next Avengers', but that hardly seemed worth mentioning right now.
"Next Avengers, actually." Harley corrected the purple villain
...never mind.
At that, Thanos spoke with intrigue. "Interesting. I thought by eliminating half of life, the other half would thrive."
Ava let out a scoff at that. "Pfft! With all the genocide, lost families, loved ones...yeah, that just about impossible."
"Yes, you have shown me that. As long there are those that remember what was, there will always be those that are unable to accept what can be. They will resist."
"Yep, we're all kinds of stubborn." Harley shrugged.
A chuckle and a nod came from Thanos at that. "Yes. But I am thankful. Because now, I know what I must do." The Mad Titan stated as he stood up. "I will shred this universe down to it's last atom." He took his helmet from his double bladed sword and put it on. "And then, with the stones you've collected for me, create a new one! Teeming with life. That knows, not what it has lost, but only what it has been given."
He pulled his weapon out of the ground and readied himself for what came next. As did the young ones.
Jamie exhaled a deep breath as he gripped his father's shield tightly. Torunn's eyes lit up with the color blue as lightning came and crackled around her, as well as her father's hammer and Stormbreaker. Ava pulled down her mask while Peter, Harley, and Azari's masks all came up, and they all got into their stances.
The five of them surrounded the Mad Titan, who showed no shred of fear. "It will be a grateful universe."
"Born out of blood." Jimmy stated, not too happily.
"They'll never know it," Thanos replied, "Because you won't be here to tell them."
The group all stared at him with determination and there was a silence. Then, lightning sparked around Torunn and let out a loud battle cry as they all sprung into action.
She struck first. Jumping up and bringing a lightning charged Stormbreaker down, connecting it with Thanos' sword. Then pushed her back and swung his sword, which Jamie dodged before tossing his father's shield at Thanos.
But he was smacked away and it landed almost twenty-two feet away.
Harley went in and fired his repulsor beams and Azari took this opportunity to go low and swiped at the Mad Titan's leg with his claws, making him crash down on one side. Ava slashed thee other side, but Thanos recovered and countered the attack.
Peter jumped in and shot two web-lines at Thanos' shoulders and sling-shot himself at him, resulting in a heavy dropkick to the chest, sending the Titan tumbling back.
As they all fought Thanos, those still stuck down below had problems of their own.
DUN-DUN-DUUUUUNNNN! Whooo, this just got thick real quick! I'm so PUMPED right now and with what's coming, we'll I've got mixed emotions about it. It's gonna be crazy what comes next, and there's gonna be plenty of adrenaline. So stick around for that.
Also, not sure if any of you remember this, but a good twenty-something chapters ago, I mentioned that some chapters and parts had been pre-written before this story was even published. Well, the scene where Peter, Jamie, Torunn, Harley, Azari and Ava confront Thanos was one of the first to be written. 😁 That one was a fun one to do, putting their emotions and fire into the words for these characters, all of it.
Hope you guys enjoyed it!😁 I see all of your comments they're great and I thank you for them.🙏 🙏 Next chapter is gonna be out soon, I don't want to keep you guys waiting too long. So hang on a little and it'll be out soon. 👍 👍 👍
Can't wait to see what you guys comment for this one, hehehe! See y'all in the next chapter.
Laters! ✌ ✌
