Again we return to this oddity of a chapter that crawled from the deepest recess of my mind.
Infinity Chapter XV
Fetch Quest Part II
Feedback stared around at the living video game characters with befuddled amazement while Tony looked plain confused and Daisy wore an annoyed expression.
"Again, about that bet," he stated, looking over at Daisy as he slowly swung upside-down.
"Not now, Ben," Daisy stated coldly as she fought to turn around and look at the woman who had them all suspended.
"Nice job Maya," Sonic stated, marching a circle around the suspended heroes.
"Figured they'd put up more of a fight honestly," Maya stated, looking a bit disappointed.
The knight said nothing, staring down the steps imperiously as it held its sword toward them.
"Eh, these AIM guys never put up much of a fight." Sonic scoffed, darting around and poking Tony in the forehead.
"Do we look like AIM to you?" Tony fired back.
"I dunno, AIM seems to come in all shapes and sizes." the blue hedgehog returned with a shrug of his shoulders, "Yellow cylinder heads, big robots, weird latex bodysuits, way too muscular and glowing.
"And even if you aren't, there's no way we're going to let you hurt her." Maya stated angrily, "Time's running out on my little trick, Ashen One, you're up."
The silent knight began to march down the stairs, dropping their sword blade first into the stairs as they raised their fists.
The knight struck at Ben, catching him full in the face and sending him spinning slightly.
He looked over to Tony, who was fighting to escape with all his might, and winced, "Sorry, Tony."
"What do you mean, sorry?" the other man asked, as Feedback managed to lash out with one of his antennae and latch onto the armor.
He drew in a small bit of power and, as his fingers began to spark, looked up at the knight with a confident grin.
Electricity fired out from around him, catching the knight in the chest and shaking his entire form violently, while Sonic and Maya dodged to the side. The energy spheres around them dissipated, and the trio hit the ground.
Daisy rolled after Maya, who opened fire with her SMG, glowing blue bullets sparking against the ground.
"Ben!" Tony shouted, drawing his eyes away from the electricity just in time to see the Ashen One step back, grab hold of their sword and swing it toward him all in one swift motion.
He dodged backward, Tony coming in from under his swinging arm to fire a repulsor blast directly into the knight's chest.
A whirring sound alerted Ben right as Sonic impacted his back, slamming him into the stairs and trying to pin him.
"We aren't going to let you hurt her!" he repeated.
"We didn't come here to hurt anyone," Feedback remarked, his tail wrapping around Sonic's neck and tossing him off him, "But you are making that difficult."
Sonic darted back towards him as he got to his feet, aiming a soaring kick at his face. Ben deflected the blow, though Sonic used the momentum to ping-pong off the wall and kicked Tony in the back.
Tony stumbled forward, catching a gauntleted punch to the chest, which he returned with one of his own, backing it up with a repulsor blast that sent the Ashen One careening back up the stairs.
Daisy dodged out of the way of Sonic's next lunge, though that left her open for a shot from Maya, which sent electricity ripping through her body.
Feedback lashed outward with his antennae, piercing into the gun's side and drawing in a surprising amount of electricity from it. Maya looked down in surprise as her gun stopped firing, Daisy using that moment of hesitation to blast her into a wall with a wave of force.
Electricity crackling across his body Ben whirled on Sonic as he bolted towards him again and let out a roaring blast of electricity that sent the video game character out into the street as he crashed through the front doors.
All three of the video game characters flashed suddenly, their forms becoming less corporeal for a moment as they pushed themselves to their feet. As they resolidified, Feedback's antennas picked up a surge of electricity from above them.
"Think you can hold them off?" he asked, turning to look at Tony, "I think I can end this."
"Hold off a character pulled out of some teenager's favorite triple-A title." Tony snarked as he rugby tackled the Ashen One into the wall at the top of the stairs, "Shouldn't be too hard."
As if in response, the Ashen One's body began to burn, even more, a ball of fire building in their left hand as Tony pinned them to the wall.
"Or maybe not," Tony remarked, shielding his face as the Ashen One fought to angle the ignited hand towards him.
"Go, Ben!" Daisy ordered as she kicked Maya's feet out from beneath her and used a quake to her on the ground.
"Don't let him get to Abby!" Maya ordered, fighting to rise.
"On it!" Sonic cried, racing back into the fray.
The Ashen One turned their hand towards Ben instantly, an orb of orange flame filling his vision.
Dodging backward up the stairs, he managed to dodge the initial ignition, though the wave of heat that followed singed his skin painfully.
Then racing through the flames like a bat out of hell came Sonic, face set in steely resolve as he tackled Ben.
"Where do you think you're going?" Sonic asked cockily as he tugged on Feedback's antennae fighting to drag him back down the stairs.
Feedback gritted his teeth, electricity suddenly snapping to life across his entire body. With a loud "pop," Sonic was sent flying and, judging by the sound of crashing plate armor that followed, had collided with the Ashen One.
"Ow," Sonic stated loud enough for Ben to hear, drawing a small smile to his face as he bolted up the stairs two at a time before using his tail to fling him up onto the upper landing using the railing.
At the end of the hall, he spotted a cracked doorway bleeding glimmering white light against the relative darkness around it and raced towards it.
He grabbed hold of the door handle and pulled it open.
"I'm going to need you to call off your frien-whoa!" Ben began as he spotted the room's occupant with their back to him, only for the figure to jump, let out a frightened scream, and a ball of fire to crack into the wall right next to his head.
He froze, taking in the snarling yet adorable face of a Charmander, and then looked up at the person who had turned fearfully to stare at him.
She appeared to be fourteen, bundles into an oversized purple hoodie, heavy-looking black sweatpants, and a pair of taped-together sneakers. A frightened blue eye stared up at him from behind a curtain of aquamarine and cobalt blue hair.
"Stay away!" she ordered, her voice hoarse as the Charmander continued to advance on him, growling in an honestly adorable way, "I won't let you take me!"
Ben stood in silence for several moments before closing his eye and allowing his form to fade.
As he reopened his eyes, he took in the glowing fairy lights, the torn and duck-taped beanbag, and the piles upon piles of salvaged video game cartridges and boxes laying about the floor. He spotted the stolen back of electronics from earlier, laying next to a similar backpack filled with salvaged bags of chips and cans of soda.
All across the wall behind here, several tv-screens and a set of salvaged game consoles glowed and whirred kept powered somehow by some form of MacGyvering.
She was still staring at him worriedly as the Charmander continued to fume up at him.
"It's alright," he stated softly, kneeling to be at her level and giving her a comforting smile, "I'm not here to hurt you."
"I don't believe you." she muttered, "That's what people always say, and then they do it anyway."
The pain in her voice nearly broke his heart. The quick look away and the instinctual rubbing of her right shoulder managed to succeed.
"I'm not with AIM or anyone else that would ever try and hurt you." he stated softly, "I swear. I'm with the Avengers."
She gave him a sideways look, "You don't look like any Avenger I ever heard about."
He chuckled, "I'm new, which I know doesn't sound very believable."
"It doesn't," she affirmed.
"Hey! Get away from her!" Sonic snapped, darting over his back and placing himself between the two of them, "Did he hurt you?"
The video game character shot her a worried look, only for her to shake her head.
"Okay, good, but it's time you and your friends shove off dude!" the character stated aggressively, making a move to grab Ben.
"Wait." he said, holding up his hands in surrender, "I know you have no reason to trust me, but believe me when I say that I and the others are here to help if you let us."
"Help me?" Abby asked, confused, "You didn't even know I was here or who I am? Why would you even care about what happened to me?"
"Because you're scared." Ben stated softly, "Because you're a kid being hunted by some bad people, who had to face that alone for quite a bit of time possibly."
"She was never alone." Sonic snapped, "She had us."
"That's good then." Ben agreed, "She had friends, but right now, hers and mine are fighting for no real reason. I promise, from the depth of my heart, that I want to help you, okay?"
"O-okay," she stated. Sonic turned to look at her with a worried expression.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Don't worry, I'll bring you right back if things go wrong," she said softly.
"And that means I get to kick your butt, dude," Sonic said, pointing at Ben with a cocky smirk as he disappeared in a flash of pixels.
"Ben, what did you do?" Daisy asked over the comms, "They both just disappeared."
"Come upstairs; there's someone I think you're going to like to meet," he said back.
"What-what's your name?" the girl asked cautiously.
"Benjamin, but everyone calls me Ben." he returned with a smile, "What's yours?"
"I-Abby, call me Abby," she said insistently.
Daisy was fighting to contain the wide grin that wanted to escape her face as she stared down at the adorable video game character that was now perched on her lap.
She and Tony had done what Ben asked and found him sitting in front of a fourteen-year-old girl and a Charmander, which was now curled up in the girl's lap.
When they'd entered the room, the girl had stared at Tony in awed wonder, which he'd responded to with a joking wave and a laugh.
Her nerves must have gotten the better of her as almost instantly, three more characters emerged into existence.
A small purple bat was sitting atop the girl's head with a goofy grin on its face, while curled up next to her was a Yoshi, which Daisy had quickly realized was the character they had been chasing down in the first case going off their nervous looks he kept shooting them.
The last character had emerged to Daisy's delighted surprise and had toddled over to her with a curious expression before suddenly crawling up into her lap. Kirby was still sitting there contentedly, looking up at her every once in a while, his adorable eyes leaving her feeling like a giddy kid.
She caught Ben smirking over at her as he leaned on his hand before turning his eyes back to Abby, who had begun to explain how she'd come to be here, her eyes locked on Tony, who was also sitting cross-legged on the ground, his armor playing sentinel behind them on the stairs.
"Go on," he stated, as he absentmindedly tinkered with his faceplate.
"I was walking the streets the night the Dome happened," Abby stated softly, "I remember the wall of red energy passing over me followed by this blue smoke that got into my lungs. I remember everything going dark, and when I woke up I guess, I could do this."
"You're an Inhuman," Daisy noted with surprise.
"A what?" Abby queried, cocking her head slightly.
"You're like me," she replied with a smile, lifting her hands and vibrating them slightly.
"Oh," Abby said, her eyes widening slightly.
"What are you doing here, though?" Tony interjected, "Was your home in the Dome? Is there anyone that might be wondering where you are?"
Abby was quiet for a while, subconsciously hugging her created companions closer to herself as she stared at the ground.
"I don't have a home." she finally said quietly, "And no-no one's looking for me, except AIM."
Tears began to well up in the young teen's eyes, Yoshi resting his head on her's with a comforting noise, while Kirby hopped out of Daisy's lap and went over to hug her.
Ben looked disgruntled, and Tony was looking at her with a pensive face.
The former spoke up, looking like he wanted to reach out for her but catching himself, "Hey, it's alright, what about all this, hmm?"
He gestured around the room at the electronics specifically.
"I never felt like I belonged anywhere," Abby muttered, "But there were a few places I could go that allowed me to forget. The Arcade, but I never had the money to actually play the games, so I just watched other people, but a few of the game stores let you play demos."
She smiled softly, stroking the back of the Pokemon lying in her lap, "I could escape, I didn't need to worry, and there wasn't much I could play, but I loved it. Some of the workers there were friendly to me. Let me stay and play as long as I wanted."
"After the Dome hit, I had nowhere to go so, I went to the only place I felt safe." she stated, "And that's how I learned about what I could do."
"You weren't alone anymore," Ben stated comfortingly, Abby nodding in agreement.
"The Morlocks never found you?" Daisy asked, fighting another wide grin as Kirby toddled back over and got back into her lap.
"Who?" Abby asked, confused.
"A group of people like you that we're trying to help others get out of the Dome." Tony stated, "You made it out of the Dome on your own?"
"No on my own, no." Abby returned, blushing slightly, "I had Smash Brothers."
Ben cracked a smile at that, "And whomever you pulled out helped you get here?"
"Yeah, I took as much as I could from the store," Abby stated before muttering a bit quieter, "And some other places and tried to find someplace safe."
"What about AIM?" Daisy asked, "How did they find you?"
"I don't know." she replied, looking slightly panicked, "They just showed up one day. I don't know if they had some way of finding me, but they acted really kind at first, said they were here to help me. Maya didn't trust them, said they reminded her of Hyperion."
"Hyperion?" Tony asked, "Who's Hyperion?"
"It's a villain from Borderlands, one of her video games," Ben stated simply, nodding towards one of the piles.
Tony nodded, "If you don't mind me asking, then Abby, how do your powers work. How many characters can you make real? Do they remember you? What happens to their personalities?"
"Calm down, their Stark." Daisy snarked.
"What? This is sort of unprecedented." Tony said with a smile, gesturing to Abby, "I've never seen anything like what she can do before. We've got a little reality warper on our hands, by my estimate."
"Well, then let her answer." Ben stated evenly, giving the befuddled girl a kind smile, "Go on."
"As long as I know the game, I can call a character out of it." Abby began to explain, "I can only pull four out at a time, and when I panic or get scared, some just sort of appear. I don't have much control over it. They always remember me, and they stay pretty similar to how they are in-game, except they want to help me. I don't control them or anything. They're my friends."
Yoshi, Kirby, and the Bat nodded in unison with large smiles.
"That is ridiculously sweet." Tony said with a smirk, "Seriously, I think I'm getting a cavity just looking at this, especially you Tremors. I've never seen you smile this wide."
"Can it Stark." Daisy rebuked, aiming a small tremor at his head, causing his hair to blow backward, leaving him looking like a wild-eyed, goateed Bride of Frankenstein.
Abby giggled softly, eliciting a grin from Ben.
"Abby, do you mind if I talk to these two for a second?" Tony asked, gesturing at Ben and Daisy.
"O-okay," she said a bit nervously.
"Don't worry, it's nothing bad," he reassured.
He stood up. Daisy followed somewhat begrudgingly since it meant having to unseat Kirby, while Ben gave Abby one last reassuring smile as they turned and walked out into the hallway beyond.
"So, what do you think we should do with her?" Tony asked seriously.
"Well, we can't leave her here," Daisy stated.
"Well, obviously, but where do we take her?" Tony returned, "FRIDAY, any clue who she is?"
"With facial recognition banjaxed alongside your visor and only a first name, there isn't much I have to go off, Boss." the AI stated, turning the faceless head of the Iron Man suit to look at them.
"Right." Tony muttered, "All I'm thinking is that she's not like Mr. Amnesia here. She came from somewhere."
Ben rolled his eyes at the jab, "By the sound of it, I don't think that 'somewhere' was much of a home, to begin with. She's a runaway, and what none of us have the right to ask her right now is what she was running away from."
"Regardless, we can't leave her in an abandoned building scavenging for food alongside a bunch of sentient video game characters," Daisy stated, "She needs a real home."
"Xavier's?" Tony asked, giving Daisy a pointed look.
"Xavier's." she agreed, "Well, first the Tower, give her a night to acclimate around us for a short bit before introducing her to an entire group of strangers."
"Which we just need to convince her is the right move," Ben noted, turning back to look at her.
She was sitting quietly, humming to herself as Charmander chased Kirby around the room.
"That shouldn't be too hard." Tony muttered, scratching his chin, "We're pretty likable after all."
Daisy scoffed and turned to walk back into the room when a light started glowing on the Iron-Man armor.
"Scanners just picked up several armored vehicles pulling into the alleys around the building." FRIDAY stated, "Numerous heat-signatures, organic, artificial, and a few with signs of Extremis infusion."
"What?" Abby asked, appearing in the door frame with a terrified look on her face.
"Don't worry, kid." Tony remarked, with a smile, "AIM ain't got a thing on any of us."
"We'll keep you safe." Daisy returned.
"What if you can't?" she fired back, tears brimming in her eyes, several of her digital friends flashing out of existence except for Kirby, who was looking up at the young teen with a sad expression.
"Then why don't you help us?" Ben asked suddenly, kneeling again, "Show them once and for all. No one should mess with Abby or her friends."
"I-I don't, I can't make many, and if they get hurt, I can't bring them back out for a really long time," Abby stated, panicking slightly.
Ben looked up towards the screen lined along the wall, a wide grin crossing his face.
"Course you can. I've got an idea." Ben turned to look at the others, "Think you can hold them off for a bit."
"How long?" Tony asked.
"Just a minute or so, I just need them distracted." Ben returned.
"Oh, I can definitely do that," Tony said with a smirk as he stepped back into the Iron Man armor, "Is there any way up onto the roof?"
Abby nodded, pointing down the hall, "Other side of the building."
"Perfect." Tony remarked, turning to Daisy, "Let's go."
There was a flash of light as Maya and the Ashen One emerged, followed by Sonic.
"Not without us," Maya stated, pulling out a stream-lined shotgun.
"This is so weird," Tony muttered as Maya took the lead down the hallway. Kirby stuck his hands up to Daisy as if asking her to pick him up, to which she immediately obliged."
"What are you going to do?" Daisy asked, turning back to Ben as he closed his eyes.
He didn't answer as first as his skin suddenly turned pitch black, vivid glowing green lines emerging across his body as a glowing green circle emerged in place of his eyes. His body shivered in an oddly liquid fashion as his arms extended and widened.
"I'm going to help Abby with a little Upgrade," Ben stated, his voice sounding slightly digitized.
Tony looked out over the alleyways as AIM's forces arrayed themselves below them.
It looked like a good fifty people, not counting the several drones that floated about or the larger bots at the backline near the armored vehicles they'd come in.
He was still tweaking his mask as the others paced about the roof.
Daisy was muttering quietly to herself, listing off strategies for sending the most enemies flying at one time while Kirby toddled behind her, not really seeming to take in the events going on around them.
The Knight was standing silently, not that they did much else, with their head turned down slightly, a large bow in hand.
Maya had switched out her shotgun for a very strange, almost alien-looking rifle that hummed with electricity.
Meanwhile, the blue hedgehog was tapping his foot impatiently as he stared out at the assembled AIM soldiers.
"This is more than they've ever sent before," Maya stated, a determined grin on her face.
"So they've pulled out the stops." Tony remarked, "Means what's going to happen next is going to be all the more embarrassing for them."
"FRIDAY, activate speakers please," Tony stated, putting the finishing touches on his mask.
"Done," she replied.
"Attention Asshole Imitating Megafans!" Tony called out, his voice echoing across the alleyways.
"This is Tony Stark, the one who kicked the ass of your boss a couple of years back." Tony remarked conversationally, "You know the one that gives all manic inventors a bad name? I'm only going to say this once: Go back to whatever cyber-cafe you all crawled out of right now, or prepare for your day to take a really shitty turn. So says the Avengers."
The only response was the sound of a sniper firing, a bullet bolting right past Tony's head, and slamming into the brickwork behind him.
He immediately fitted his fixed faceplate back to his helmet and smirked as FRIDAY immediately found the shooter.
"Well, sir, since you asked so nicely, one ass-kicking coming right up!" Tony snarked as he aimed both repulsors at him and fired. The sniper caught both in the back as he tried to dodge and ate a face full of concrete as Tony stepped off the building and hit the ground in a crouch.
There was a soft bouncing sound to his right, and he was slightly surprised to see Kirby staring up at him with a wide smile which turned into a deep frown as the little guy rounded on AIM.
"You were not the backup I was expecting, but you'll do."
Daisy waited for several seconds as Sonic bolted off the eastern side, spinning into a rolling ball that began to bounce its way across AIM's forces.
Maya and the Ashen One began firing from the roof bolts of bright blue energy and hilariously large arrows raining down the western alleyway.
She winced slightly as a few folks suddenly found their shoulders perforated by arrows the size of a javelin and turned to Maya.
"You coming?" she asked, vibrations coalescing around her legs.
"Right behind you." Maya stated, flipping a switch on the side of her odd sniper, causing the internal lighting to turn orange, "Ash, you good?"
The knight didn't respond, instead dropping their bow, pulling an immense greatsword from hammerspace, which immediately ignited, and then stepping off the side facing west.
"Seems like." Quake stated, "Let's go."
Quake burst into the air, new vibrations building in her arms as she aimed for the middle of the AIM soldiers grouped in the southern alleyway.
She hit the ground with a dull boom, the wave of force that followed sending several people soaring into the air where they were snared by Maya, hanging there in scrunched-up balls.
Several ignited with panicked screams as Maya fired off several shots, their smoking but still breathing bodies crashing to the ground as she stowed her rifled and pulled out a shotgun.
Daisy grinned slightly, still amazed at the situation she found herself in even as she deflected the butt of a rifle and kicked the attacker backward, and twisted to quake another AIM soldier into a dumpster.
Tony had similar feelings as he watched a pink ball of adorableness absolutely devastate several AIM soldiers while spinning like a top.
"Ben, how's that plan going?" Tony asked as he ripped the sniper he'd bodied from the ground and tossed him forcefully into a bunch of his fellows.
"Just need one more second," Upgrade stated.
"Well, we can definitely do that," Tony muttered as he watched Sonic ping-pong his way between several walls and smashed clean through a drone, screeching to a halt with a thumb's up before darting away.
"This day is so goddamn weird," Tony remarked.
"It's about to get weirder," Upgrade remarked as he finished melding into Abby's setup. The screens and game consoles shifted and grew, melding into one immense monitor atop a humming tower glowing with the alien's single circular eye.
"You ready?" he asked, his head extending out to come around Abby's shoulder to look at the video screens that now showed the battle going on outside.
"To do what?" Abby asked, slightly confused, "I can't call anymore."
"Have you tried?" Ben asked, "Because I get the feeling with a little help from yours truly you'd be surprised at what you can pull off."
"I-." Abby went quiet for a second.
"All you can ever do is try," Ben said supportively.
"O-okay." she said, stepping towards the screen and closing her eyes, "Who should I pick?"
"Whomever you want," he returned, "Have fun with it!"
"Right," Abby stated, a tiny smile crossing her face as she concentrated.
Tony grunted as he shrugged off a bolt of energy from one of the bots, returning fire with a small rocket on the back of his forearm.
"Cavalry incoming," Ben remarked as a booming crash sounded off to his right.
A looming figure in a strange diving suit, with a drill in place of its one hand, let out a low bellow and charged one of the AIM robots, piercing its spinning weapon clean through it and turning it to scrap.
A gorilla in a bowtie bolted past him, grabbing an AIM soldier in both hands and on foot and going into a rapid spin, tossing them about like rag-dolls.
A girl, at least he thought it was a girl with spiked blonde hair and an immense sword, leaped into the fray on the eastern alley, slamming people out of the way with the flat side of their cartoonishly large weapon.
Daisy smirked as one of the AIM soldiers suddenly fell to the ground cowering as an oddly cute pitch-black creature looking almost like a twisted jester grabbed hold of him and dragged him to the ground.
"I don't want to be heartless!" the guy cried as he writhed right before the creature head-butted him and turned to give her a rather disconcerting look before bolting towards another AIM soldier.
There was a strange robotic screech from behind her, followed by what looked like a mechanical ostrich bolting right past her and tackling an AIM robot to the ground before ripping its head from its shoulders and shaking it to pieces.
Daisy shook herself out of her surprise as a glowing hand pulled her backward, out of the path of a bouncing grenade that exploded into an electrified snare that wrapped around two AIM soldiers that had been trying to control the strange inky-black character.
"Head in the game," Maya remarked, whirling about and slamming the butt of her shotgun into a goon's face with a satisfying crack.
"That is almost ironic coming from you." Daisy snarked as she palmed a drone out of the air with a quake-powered strike.
Maya shrugged playfully as she blasted another drone out of the air.
Tony felt incredibly confident in their chances as he saw AIM folding around him like paper when suddenly things changed.
It was like a switch had been flipped as one of the soldiers suddenly bolted for the gorilla, his entire body bleeding orange smoke.
"Get back!" Tony ordered, the ape looked at him before gaging the charging soldier, but by then, it was too late as the man went up in an explosion of Extremis-fueled fire.
The character flew backward, crumbling into a heap behind Tony as AIM pushed forward in unison.
Tony braced as bullets began to ping off his armor, and he spotted the others getting pushed back as well.
The girl with the immense sword used it as a shield, bullets bouncing off it as suppressing fire rained down upon her.
The thing in the diving suit was pinned down by several drones, electric tethers pulling its arms apart as it struggled to break free.
The Ashen One was facing another Extremis empowered soldier, lopping off one of their arms only for it to grow back in moments as they fought to rip the armor from its form.
An explosion south of the building drew Tony's attention, even as he activated his unibeam, planning on making short work of what remained in front of him before helping the others.
"Daisy, do you copy?" he asked.
"I'm fine," Daisy stated, as she dragged the frantically shooting Maya backward, "One of the Extremis-amped soldiers bull-rushed us. Maya's down."
"Not yet," Maya stated through gritted teeth, firing on the approaching AIM forces. After the soldier had exploded, the remaining bots had stepped forward, barriers emerging that shrugged off all of the Borderland's character's shots and her quakes.
The strange black creature was hiding behind Daisy as they backed up, while the bird had placed itself between them and a hail of bullets from the AIM soldiers, which passed through the robot's barriers without even an ounce of resistance.
"It's like they adapted," Daisy said over her comms.
"They came prepared. I'll be there soon," Tony remarked, as the unibeam continued to build, "Just hold on."
Just as the unibeam prepared to fire, a flat disc came firing out of the fray.
It immediately mag-locked to his armor, his entire suit locked up as the power was redirected into the mechanism like a metallic leech.
"Crap," Tony muttered as the soldiers closed in on him, and the little pink critter that was cowering behind his legs,
AIM leveled their guns on him, eerily quiet and almost robotic in their motions.
One lowered their gun to point at Kirby, their finger on the trigger.
"Hey, asshat! All eyes on me!" Tony ordered, trying to move the armor even an inch in the soldier's direction.
There was a flash of blue energy. As the gun fired twice, one of the bullets suddenly went high, snapping into the disc on his shoulder, damaging it enough for him to regain control of moving.
"You're too sl-slow…." Tony turned as Sonic's voice trailed off, the character slumping to the ground and dissipating into pixels as the other bullet clattered to the ground.
"No!" Abby cried, holding the sides of her head as Sonic dissipated, her breath becoming frantic as more of her companions were injured and pushed back.
She began to cry, "I can't do this. I'm gonna be left alone again."
"No, no, you aren't," Ben stated, a hand reaching out to hold the side of her head, "He's going to be okay. They all will be."
"How?!" Abby asked, angrily trying to shrug his hand off.
"Because of you," Ben stated earnestly. "They've protected you for so long. Now it's time for you to be their hero."
"I don't-, how can I do that?" she asked, "I'm just a kid."
"You're right, and you didn't deserve this." Ben stated, "All I can ask of you is to be brave for yourself and your friends, who right now need your help more than anyone else. Their strength is your strength in the most literal way."
She nodded slowly, tears still leaking out of her eyes.
"We can win this." Ben stated, "You can win this, and when this is over, you're never going to have to worry about AIM bothering you again."
"Promise?" Abby stated.
"Absolutely," Ben replied.
"Be their hero…" she muttered to herself before repeating it a bit louder, "Be their hero."
Tony had been pushed back to the front steps, Kirby hiding behind him as the girl he'd now realized was, in actuality, a feminine-looking guy was holding his oversized blade in one hand and supporting the severely hurt ape on the opposite shoulder. The Ashen One was to his right, weapon at the read, armor dented their breath slightly ragged. The creature in the diving suit was restrained by the drones, several soldiers aiming guns at it as it struggled off to the side.
Daisy held the fading Maya, the other characters staring down the slowly approaching AIM forces, the metallic bird screeching in defiance. At the same time, the black figure sat prepared to spring into battle.
Pixels were dusting off each of the characters as they stared down the AIM forces, standing shoulder to shoulder with these real-life heroes in a defiant last stand.
A low tune began to fill the air, each of the characters stiffening as the tune slowly began to crescendo.
The dusting of the pixels ceased as a wide smile crossed each of the characters with a visible face.
The blonde bolted forward, their body glimmering as they sent a glowing arc of energy fire free of their blade, sending AIM soldiers careening backward.
The gorilla snorted angrily and spun his arm in a cartoonish fashion before launching a punch that sent one of the remaining robots careening backward so hard it crashed into the armored vehicle at the back of the alleyway, flipping it onto its top and sending it scraping across the street several feet.
The Ashen One ignited in flames, buffeting AIM soldiers back with a slash after slash of their blade.
The Dive Suit let out a rumbling roar as its arm was suddenly covered in ice, ten AIM soldiers freezing solid in a wave of ice.
On the opposite side of the building, Maya surged back to life and lifted her hand into a clenched fist, the robots lifting into the air in tandem, crushing like soda cans.
Daisy darted forward, slapping her hands together into an air-shattering clap that sent the remainder of AIM forces on their side careening through their air alongside a wave of torn-up concrete, brick, and random bits of detritus left around the alleyway.
"Wow," Maya remarked, giving Daisy an appreciative look, "Impressive."
"Thanks, picked it up from a friend," Daisy remarked with a smile as the metallic bird began almost playfully bobbing any AIM soldier that tried to get up, knocking them unconscious.
Tony watched as the remaining AIM soldiers seemed to shake themselves out of their robotic fugue and turn to run. He bolted after them, aiming a repulsor blast at the fleeing enemies.
He caught several in the back, stunning them to the ground.
Two soldiers suddenly stopped, waving the others on, and bolted back towards him, their bodies beginning to smoke.
Tony planted himself, firing bolt after bolt of repulsor energy, but they shrugged off the blasts as they continued to race toward him.
Kirby suddenly rolled up and planted himself in front of Tony, and just as he was about to order him to get out of the way, he opened his mouth wide.
There was a sudden rushing sound as both the Extremis soldiers were pulled off their feet and were pulled into the character's wide mouth.
Tony stared utterly aghast as he then turned and spat out a strange animated star that cracked into the wall and popped, revealing the extremis-infused soldiers, unconscious and covered in a disconcerting amount of sparkling saliva.
Kirby looked up at Tony and let out a giddy squeal.
"That was, quite honestly, one of the most horrific things I have ever seen," Tony remarked flatly as Kirby frowned slightly.
The rest of the AIM agents had been pulled back by the sudden intake of air and were now staring at Tony and the adorable little monster, their whole bodies tense.
"Uh, yeah, unless you want that," Tony remarked, pointing downward at Kirby, "To happen to you, I wouldn't take another step toward that car."
They all looked at each other, and before he could react, they all vanished in a sudden curtain of glowing blue light.
Several moments later, Abby's friends had tied up the defeated AIM forces and left them for SHIELD after Daisy made a call. Abby was currently sitting on Ben's shoulders with a tired smile on her face, while the assembled characters turned in unison to stare at Daisy and the others.
The Ashen One nodded silently to each of them before disappearing, followed by the Big Daddy, which reached up to ruffle Abby's hair gently as it did so.
"That was rough. I'm glad we pulled through," Cloud muttered, Daisy fighting to keep her inner geek contained as he too disappeared.
Donkey Kong grabbed the four of them, in a tight hug with a chuckle before setting them down and disappearing.
He was followed by Kirby, who leaped up into her arms with a wide grin, babbling sweetly at her.
Rolling her eyes at the smirking smile Ben shot her, she wrapped the little puffball in the tightest of hugs before he vanished.
Maya was the last to look up at Abby, "If you need anything, call me back out, Abby."
The teen nodded with a smile, "I will."
"Good, you have everything?" Maya asked.
Ben nodded, patting the two oversized duffles hanging from his shoulders, "Yep, all squared away."
"Awesome." she stated, reaching up and squeezing Abby's hand before stepping back, "He'll be back soon, so don't think too much about it."
Abby nodded sadly and clutched at the sonic pin on her backpack a bit tighter.
"We should do this again. As screwy as today was, it was pretty fun fighting alongside you guys and fighting you guys." Maya said with a wide smile as she looked at Daisy, "Especially you, you flaming badass."
"Th-thank you," she replied, a bit befuddled by the character's rather emphatic compliment.
Maya disappeared with a wave leaving the trio of Avengers and Abby alone.
"What now?" Abby asked.
"Well, we wait for SHIELD to arrive and collect these morons," Tony said, kicking one of the AIM soldiers as he looked up at Abby, "And then we find you a proper bed to sleep in, and a hot meal, not exactly in that order."
"I don't have to go with SHIELD, do I?" she asked nervously, staring down at the others.
"We were thinking you could spend a night or two at the tower," Daisy stated, "Before taking you to Xavier's Institute. It's a place where you'd learn to fully use your powers, safely and alongside people who understand what you've gone through."
"Unless, of course, you don't want to hang out with the Avengers." Tony joked, "In which case, we can ship you off to stuffy old Xavier's tonight."
"No!" Abby exclaimed, sitting forward suddenly and nearly knocking Ben over, "Sorry, I mean no, the Tower sounds cool."
"Great, I'm sure the others will love to meet you, Abby…."Daisy began, "Do you have a last name? You don't have to answer, but it might be something the SHIELD agents will want to know, and if you'd rather talk to us, that is entirely understandable."
"Fetch." the teen said after a few seconds of quiet, "My name is Abigail Fetch."
"Well, Miss Fetch, how does Big Belly Burger sound?" Ben asked with a smirk, "Daisy's buying."
Tony smirked as Daisy blinked several times and then pinched the bridge of her nose, "Right, right, just try and not eat her out of house and home."
"No promises!" Ben crowed with a smile, earning a punch in the shoulder from Daisy while Abby laughed.
The jovial mood continued as the quartet waited for SHIELD to arrive, the setting sun painting the sky a beautiful orangish-red.
The Palace of the Allfather, Asgard, 23:59 AST
The sky was aflame as Thor fell onto the steps of his home, clutching the bleeding wound on his side.
"Father!" Thor roared, limping up the steps, "Mother!"
He stumbled into the great hall as soldiers rushed past him, spears in hand, their faces blanching as they stared at his minced face and bleeding torso, yet they took their posts anyway.
Thor looked up, seeing his father standing before his throne, talking in hushed tones with his mother, before kissing her forehead. She turned to leave and froze when she saw her battered son, her face aghast. She took a step towards him before turning to look at Odin instead of leaving the room through a side door.
"Father, what is happening?" Thor demanded as Mjolnir sparked and sputtered in his hand, "This entity that besieges Asgard is like nothing I have ever seen before."
"A reckoning, my son," Odin replied, his brow furrowing as he stepped down the dais and placed a hand on his son's forehead, sealing his wounds with his magic.
"Where is mother going?" Thor asked, standing taller as his wounds sealed.
"I can not say, my son." Odin stated, "For if I do, then the creature brought to bear against us will surely know it as well."
"What would you have me do?" Thor asked, "How can we defeat this being?"
"We can't," Odin stated with finality as he walked back up the dais and fell into his throne.
Thor was stunned, his father taking a moment to look at him square on.
"This is my charge to you, Thor." Odin stated, "Free your Brother, bring him to the Tesseract, then flee together."
"Have the Norns taken your mind?!" Thor cried, "You say what happened to Midgard because of Loki and that damned Tesseract!"
"I know, but what's coming is worse." Odin stated evenly, "And your brother is one of the craftiest beings in the universe. If one could hide from her, it would be him."
Thor made to argue when the doors to the palace shattered inward, only to be ripped back outward and scattered to dust.
White Masked Dark Elves charged in, their blasters searing through the assembled guards. Several managed to rally only for spears of glowing orangish-red energy to catch them in the chest and lift them off their feet as they burned away to nothing.
She had arrived, resplendent in her terrible majestic, glowing skin black as the void, her eyes and hair glowing fountains of burning orangish-red energy.
A single black gem was high-lighted by a porcelain mask atop her forehead while she was dressed in a simple gown of the purest white cloth. She was adorned in a silver metallic collar, and two bracelets made of the same metal rested upon her wrists. Empty sockets were set into all three adornments.
A set of wings, black as the night sky and set with glimmering red stars, jutted from her back, strange roiling shapes darting within them like fish behind the glass of an aquarium.
She walked down through the air, ash and dust scattering as the Dark Elves kneeled before her. Her burning eyes focused on Odin with utter contempt as she halted.
"Go, boy," Odin ordered, as two pillars of magical energy emerged from the floor and formed a glowing wall of light that separated Thor and her forces from the two ancient beings.
Thor stared at his father for a moment longer, a deep chill setting into his heart as she turned to look at him and bolted away, feeling like a child.
"My Lady, I have heard tales of your majesty," Odin stated as he stood his entire form burning with the magics gifted to him by the World Tree, "But nothing could have prepared me for the terror that walks with you, nor the cries of the body you have stolen. Even still, we are between the pillars, as befits two of our stature, and so that will stay until your demands are known."
"I know of you Odin Allfather, Lord of the Hanged, Glad-O-War, Father to Death, Thunder, and Lies, Master of the Ten Realms, He of Ravens and Wolves, Second Son of Bor." the Lady stated, the room darkening with every title she spat out, "Your father lies dead, so my grievance lies with you. I, the Guardian of the Lost and Forgotten, Daughter of Eternity, Mother of Infinity, come seeking my daughter."
She closed her eyes, the room becoming pitch black except for the pillars roaring with the light of the Bifrost, "And you are in my way."
And scene!
This one went a little long, but it kept grabbing me and tugging me along, talking me into adding more and more.
Next chapter, we see Odin vs the Lady, Thor and Loki, and the unexpected consequences of their actions on Asgard.
Abby Fetch, is likely going to show up again, and I'm sure it will continue to be a befuddling occasion when it comes to her friends interacting with the Avengers and others.
As always any questions, comments, or critiques are appreciated. And it should be noted I will be taking a break next week.
This has been VerBeeker, signing off!