Hello and welcome to a brand new crossover! Since Convergence is on hiatus, I decided that I wanted to get started on a brand new story. It's a story that I've been wanting to write since I initially thought of it in 2018.
This originally was going to be a three/four part story in my now-deleted anthology series A Tale to Tell, which was set in my Crossover-Verse that would be established in Convergence. But now it's here in it's own continuity!
By the way if anyone is wondering, the Marvel Universe used in this story is not inspired or based on the MCU (despite the cover image having renders of them). Here, I've taken a route that's more based around the comics as well as various TV shows and games.
So anyway enough of my rambling, let's get this story started! I don't own any franchises featured in this story. Enjoy!
There came a day unlike any other… where the planet was almost destroyed by an unspeakable evil. The evil of Malefor, the Dark Master.
But when all seemed lost, a hero rose to combat against the forces of darkness… a young purple dragon named Spyro. He, along with his companion Cynder, supposedly gave their lives to bring the world to a new age of peace. An age that I sadly cannot live through, only observe and chronicle into the Books of Time.
However, as a year passes on, something new has started to rise from the ashes of Spyro's victory. It's presence over our world is like a shadow, slowly emerging the land in blackness and corruption… even creatures once fallen have begun to walk amongst the living again.
Nonetheless when all else fails, there's always hope.
Hope from a world that's different from ours…
(-)
New York City. Some people call it 'The Big Apple', some call it 'The City That Never Sleeps'. Bright lights beam across every single building to indicate the city's reputation of being lively and cultural. Whatever the time is, there are always people lurking about on the streets whether they're just heading home from work or they're out to see the sights.
As long as they stay well away from the chaos and destruction going on at the moment.
In the centre of Central Park, explosions of the magical variety erupted all over the place. They were powerful enough to create purple-coloured fireballs the size of a six-story building. Not enough to engulf the city but enough to scare the people.
Fortunately for them, there's a group of remarkable heroes on hand to put a stop to whoever's creating the chaos around them: Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Spider-Man and the Hulk. To the people of New York as well as the entire world they are known as the Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
"Tony, look out!" Captain America shouted as Iron Man was unaware of the energy blasts that were about to hit him.
Iron Man quickly turned to the sound of Cap's voice before flying out of the way as he quickly fired a repulsor blast at a mysterious figure that was attacking them.
This figure resembled a shadow, it had no physical form however the shape that it took resembled a dragon with two curved horns and piercing white eyes. It was unlike any creature that the Avengers have ever encountered. The mysterious figure was able to absorb Iron Man's repulsor blast and send it back to him, sending him flying towards a nearby tree.
Seeing how Iron Man's attack didn't even touch the creature, Captain America then flung his shield towards it. However, his mighty shield just went through the creature's body like a car through the fog.
"So this is Earth's Mightiest Heroes?" The shadow creature taunted, it's voice deep and heavily raspy. "A pity really… I expected more of a challenge…"
Hulk suddenly lunged towards the mysterious creature, fists raised in the air as he prepared to pound him to the ground. "Then you're going to love me!"
Once Hulk made contact with the figure, the creature was able to dissolve around Hulk's fists. As Hulk looked at his fists confusingly, he failed to notice the figure reform itself behind him. The figure used its whole body to slam into the Hulk, sending him hurtling through the ground.
The mysterious creature smirked maliciously at the sight of his victory, having almost taken down the strongest hero amongst the group. But he failed to notice as a dash of red and blue swung past him, unleashing a flurry of webs onto the creature's face.
"One side, coming through!" Spider-Man exclaimed as he swung around the shadow creature. "You know, for once, my webs are actually an improvement on someone's face!"
As the shadow creature growled furiously, purple energy sprouted out of its maw and began to melt Spider-Man's web right off his face. His blinding bright eyes glared right at the webslinger as he got in a dynamic position, ready to attack or defend himself.
Suddenly Spider-Man's eyes widened as the ground began to rumble around him, a purple hue glowing beneath him. Thanks to his spider-sense, the wall-crawler was able to jump out of the way as pillars of sharp rock rose from the ground. The mysterious figure snarled at his failure and followed Spider-Man with more and more pillars of rocks, each one just missing the hero by a second.
"Impossible!" The shadow creature barked.
"Oh I wouldn't worry about me, Chuckles," Spider-Man said, pointing behind the shadow creature. "I'd rather be more concerned with the magical hammer that's about to clobber you…"
The figure confusingly raised an eyebrow and darted around to see what was behind him. As if it was on cue, a large grey square headed hammer with lightning sparking around it came soaring straight to the figure's face.
However unlike the other heroes, the hammer managed to knock the shadow creature back a couple of metres. Once the creature was struck down, the hammer stopped in mid-air and started to reverse back into the hand of its wielder: Thor, the god of thunder.
"This ends now, villain…" Thor muttered, swinging his hammer at great speed as it charged up with more lightning.
Seeing how powerful Thor could be, the shadow creature only smirked. "Finally… someone worthy of my time," he murmured to himself as he straightened himself up to attack Thor.
Meanwhile, Iron Man started to lift himself back up from the tree after being knocked out by the mysterious figure. His armour systems started to spark back to life as he glanced at the figure with curiosity.
"JARVIS, I've never seen anything like that before… not even from the Dark Dimension. What exactly am I looking at here?" Iron Man asked his suit A.I.
"Sir, I'm detecting traces of dark energy along with energy levels that I'm not familiar with… It seems that whatever this creature is, it's not from our world." JARVIS replied.
Seeing that Iron Man was getting back up, Captain America jogged towards him and extended his hand to help him up. Iron Man accepted his hand and allowed Cap to help him up.
"Tony, do you know who or what this guy is? Only Thor's attacks seem to affect him…" Cap wondered, observing Thor and the shadow creature fighting each other.
"All I know is that this guy runs on dark energy. But I'm detecting other energy levels that I've never seen before…" Iron Man responded.
"Is there a way that we can take him down?"Captain America pondered.
Iron Man stroked his faceplate as he thought about this for a while until something eventually hit him. "I've got an idea… it may be a long shot but it might just work. But I'm going to need Thor…"
Before Iron Man could take off, Captain America grabbed his arm. "Are you sure about this, Tony?" he questioned. "What if it doesn't work?"
"You got a better idea?"
Captain America didn't say anything else, only nodding in understanding. He let go of Iron Man's arm and allowed him to take off, activating his comm link on his ear as he continued to observe Thor and the shadow creature.
"Thor, stand down for a second… Stark needs you for something." Cap ordered.
"Aye." Thor said over the comms, ceasing his attack on the shadow creature and quickly taking off into the sky to meet up with Iron Man.
"While you two are planning, the rest of us will keep our friend busy…" Cap said, clutching tightly onto the straps of his shield as he, along with Hulk and Spider-Man, charged towards the shadow creature.
As Cap and the others kept the mysterious creature occupied, Thor and Iron Man hovered a few metres in the air away from the battle so that the shadow creature couldn't get to them mid-sentence.
"So what do you require from me, Stark?" Thor wondered, folding his arms.
"This guy is radiating energy I've never seen before… and only your magic lightning seems to be able to touch him," Iron Man started to explain. "If we can somehow overpower its energy with our own energy then maybe we can stop it…"
Thor raised an eyebrow. "How do we propose we do that?"
"You're the thunder god… I'm gonna need you to bring the thunder, lots of it!" Iron Man simplified for the Asgardian.
"Aye, now that I understand!" Thor exclaimed, smiling excitedly.
Spinning his hammer Mjolnir around rapidly, Thor dashed off below towards where the rest of the Avengers were fighting the shadow creature.
"Guys, Thor and I are heading your way… get out of the way now!" Iron Man called out over the comms before flying off in the same direction.
The rest of the team heard Iron Man's command and backed off from the shadow creature, surrounding him in a makeshift circle. Thor then started to charge Mjolnir's power by swirling it around until blue energy emitted from it, lightning cracking from the sky as dark clouds blackened the area around them. The shadow creature looked at the god of thunder with sudden curiosity and he too started to charge up his own power from his maw.
But before the shadow creature could do anything, a huge bolt of lightning erupted from the clouds and struck him, illuminating him in a bright blue light and causing him to shriek in pain. The creature's form started to wither and warp as his physical form became less foggy and more stable.
"By the spires of Asgard, you will fall shadow creature!" Thor shouted, clutching at Mjolnir tightly. "Now, Stark!"
Iron Man flew next to Thor as his chest started to power up. "You heard the man, JARVIS. All power to unibeam!"
On cue, a huge blast of energy erupted from Iron Man's arc reactor and also engulfed the shadow creature in energy. The combination of Iron Man's unibeam and Thor's lightning caused the shadow creature to completely disappear in an orb of light.
"Sir, power's depleting rapidly!" JARVIS shouted out, his voice sounding staticy from Iron Man's suit levels draining at a fast pace.
"Just a little more, JARVIS…" Iron Man groaned. "It's working!"
"Energy levels spiking…"
Under his helmet, the Armoured Avenger's eyes widened in complete shock. "Wait, what!?"
Iron Man turned to see the orb of light started to get darker as the energy of the shadow creature merged with both his and Thor's. Trees started to blow furiously in the violent breeze that the orb was emitting, even cracks started to emerge from the very ground surrounding the orb.
"Tony, shut it down!" Cap exclaimed. "This amount of power could level the city!"
"I… can't…" Iron Man grunted.
"Alert… trans-dimensional energy detec…" JARVIS tried to say before the orb of light grew larger and engulfed Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk in all the chaos.
Once the light had slowly faded away, the only thing that appeared was a huge crater in the middle of the park with no sign of the creature... or the Avengers anywhere through the destruction and debris.
(-)
Twin suns rose across the sky as it shone over the land, the grass and leaves on the trees made the smallest movement from the gentlest of winds. Water poured out of a variety of large waterfalls connected to a wide river that seemed to be less calm than the wind itself.
By a massive tree that stayed close to the river was a crater, smoke rising from it despite there being no fire or explosion in the first place. Amongst the dirt and rocks were the Avengers, laying still and unconscious for the time being. Everyone looked battered and filthy, each of their suits had small tears in the fabric, or scratches in Iron Man's case, and some had a small amount of blood seeping out.
Out of all of the heroes, Spider-Man was the first to wake up and was instantly blinded by the light of the suns through his fractured lens.
"Huh?" Spider-Man murmured, his vision slowly coming back to him. "Wh-what's going on?"
The webslinger carefully lifted himself up, grunting in pain while doing so, and slowly looked around at his surroundings. There were no buildings, no cars, no Helicarrier in the skies… not even people. Spider-Man has been to many strange but wonderful places over the years: Asgard and a parallel version of New York to name a few.
But wherever he was… whenever he was, this was completely different.
Spider-Man then leaned over to Iron Man, who was lying next to him, and tried to shake him awake. "Iron Man…" he muttered. "Tony, get up!"
Iron Man didn't budge, his armour was completely stiff. Spider-Man glanced at his arc reactor in his chest and noticed that it was still illuminated, despite the armour's damage that it sustained.
Good, he's alive, Spider-Man thought. What about the others?
Seeing that Captain America was on his other side. Spider-Man crawled over to him and tried to shake him awake as he did with Iron Man. Unlike him, Cap started to stir as he clenched his eyes before slowly opening them.
"Spider-Man?" Captain America mumbled. "What happened?"
The wallcrawler shrugged. "Dunno… but I got a feeling that we're not in New York anymore…"
Captain America's eyes widened as he sat up quickly to look around at their new surroundings. The super soldier then got to his feet, put his shield on his back, and helped Spider-Man up from the ground as Thor started to come around.
"Any sign on the shadow creature?" Cap then questioned as he stepped out of the crater.
"Not really… I'm not even sure that thing survived the explosion." Spider-Man replied.
Captain America frowned. "We did."
"Uh guys? A little help?" Iron Man's voice pleaded from the crater. "My suit's gone offline, I can't move!"
Thor, who just managed to stand up, knelt down to Iron Man and gently held Mjolnir to his arc reactor. "I've got you, Metal Man…" he said as a small spark of electricity emitted from the hammer.
At that moment, Iron Man's eyes started to glow once again as sounds of the suit's systems started to re-engage. Once his suit powered up, Iron Man then lifted himself from the ground.
"Ah that's better… thanks, buddy," Iron Man muttered, adjusting his gauntlet. "Fifty percent? Hmm… guess that'll have to do for now."
Iron Man then looked around at the world that he was standing in as everyone quietly stared at him. "Where are we anyway?" he wondered. "Thor, do you recognise this place?"
"Nay…" Thor shook his head. "It's not one of the ten realms… unless All-Father Odin has hidden another realm from the world tree…"
As Thor was talking, Cap began to gaze suspiciously around at the crater. He then stared at the team and counted them off one at a time. When he finished, his eyes widened.
"Hey… Has anyone seen Hulk?"
While the rest of the team exchanged confused and panicked looks, a small groan was heard nearby. At that moment, everyone darted around to see that the Hulk was closer than they thought… although he wasn't quite himself.
Laying where the Hulk should be was an average-sized human, with a lack of green skin. The only thing that was left from the green goliath was his torn purple pants, which had miraculously remained on the human's person. This wasn't the Hulk… not even close. This was the core personality behind the Hulk: Bruce Banner.
"Bruce?" Iron Man murmured questioningly as he knelt down and almost cradled Bruce in his arms as he started to regain consciousness. "I would say it's good to see you again if the circumstances weren't so dire…"
"Huh? Tony? What happened?" The gamma expert queried, remaining calm and collected despite his bombardment of questions. "Did we win?"
"You could say that…" the armoured avenger answered.
Thor scoffed and folded his arms. "Verily, you would say that… if thy plan wasn't thought through properly."
"Oh really? I didn't hear you disagreeing with me before the shadow guy sent us to who knows where!" Iron Man retaliated, standing his ground against the god of thunder.
Captain America rushed between the two of them and put his arms out defensively. "Thor, blaming Tony isn't helping anyone… we had no idea what was going to happen," he scolded. "What's important now is that we get our bearings and figure out where we even are."
"Don't sweat it, Cap… I'll just fly up and get a lie of land." Iron Man said.
Straight away, Iron Man automatically got into a flying position. However, instead of his repulsors providing him thrust for lift off, nothing happened. Iron Man briefly glanced at his hands before trying again, this time only sparks flashed quickly on his hands.
"Okay, that's weird…" Iron Man murmured, examining his gauntlets. "JARVIS, what's going on here?"
JARVIS didn't answer, there was a long silence amongst the team.
"JARVIS? Buddy? You there?" Iron Man queried, sounding almost upset. After a few seconds of silence, the genius billionaire eventually gave up. "I've got nothing…"
Captain America then turned to Thor. "Thor, can you fly up and see where we are?"
Thor nodded and spun his hammer until he got airborne, hovering over the other Avengers as he floated around to see the landscape. He stopped rotating around when he caught sight of something in the distance, what he saw couldn't be determined from the look on the thunderer's face.
"Anything?" Spider-Man queried as Thor slowly descended to the ground.
"Aye, there's a village just south of here," Thor answered, using Mjolnir to point in the direction that he was looking before. "However, I couldn't tell if there was anyone living there…"
"That's where we need to head…" Captain America said, lifting himself from inside the crater and onto the luscious green grass above.
"It could be a trap…" Bruce warned.
Spider-Man leapt up from the crater. "Yeah, Cap…" he muttered, agreeing with Bruce. "I'm pretty sure any locals won't be too welcoming towards strangers, especially if they turned out to be non-humans or something…"
The super soldier simply turned to the webslinger. "I am aware of what could happen, Spider-Man…" he murmured before turning to the world in front of him.
"But it's a risk we're going to have to take…"
(-)
The Avengers walked southwards through the grassy plains for what seemed like an hour. The team had retreated to the shade that the nearby trees provided so that they didn't have to deal with the almost scorching twin suns above them. Not much was said amongst the five heroes, what even could be said at this point? They were stuck in an unknown world, it's not like they could discuss the plans they would've had after defeating the shadow creature…
No one said anything because they didn't think they were going to get back home. The topic may not be up for discussion… but it was all there in the heroes' mind, lingering like a bad dream.
The sounds of nature were the only thing that could be heard, from the loud waterfalls that could be crashing in the distance to the quieter small animals scurrying in the grass and trees. Only a few questions lingered in the Avengers' heads: Where were they? Was there any civilization? Or were they the only inhabitants here? Most importantly, how were they going to get home?
Spider-Man walked alongside Iron Man as the team got closer to the village, they started to head out of the shade and back into the open area. Just as Spider-Man was heading into the open area, the trees began to rattle as something shot by at lightning speed.
The wallcrawler quickly darted to the source of the sound and stood there as the trees stood normally like nothing ever happened. Spider-Man's eyes narrowed suspiciously and remained still for a couple of seconds until he eventually moved on, no trace of his spider-sense going on the fritz.
"Something wrong, Spider-Man?" Captain America wondered, noticing Spider-Man's suspicious look.
Spider-Man did a double take on the trees before facing Captain America. "I don't know… something seems off here," he responded. "Like we're being watched… but my spider-sense didn't go off."
"Probably just an animal… I'm not picking up anything on my sensors," Iron Man shrugged, knocking the side of his helmet. "That's if my sensors are actually working properly."
"Did you see anything?" Bruce queried.
Spider-Man shook his head. "No… I'm not sure. It was just for a brief second…"
Seeing the webslinger's suspicions, Captain America cautiously unclipped his shield from his back and clutched it tightly on his arm. "Let's just keep our eyes open… stay sharp, Avengers."
The Avengers continued to make their way through the open clearing towards the village, more cautious than they were before. Captain America and Iron Man were in the front while Spider-Man and Thor were in the back, Bruce stayed in the middle since he was the most vulnerable out of the group.
Spider-Man looked around frantically for any trace of source of the strange noise, hoping that his spider-sense would come in handy this time. A brief cool breeze rustled the trees surrounding the clearing, which made the wallcrawler more wary than he should be.
Then suddenly his suspicions were ultimately confirmed. A sharp, powerful sensation tingled in the back of Spider-Man's head as the world around mentally went into slow motion. The webslinger quickly gazed around to see where the danger was coming from. Eventually he darted his head behind him and saw a dark shape charging towards him.
Instinctively, Spider-Man leapt up and flipped around so that the dark shape was now in front of him. The dark shape resembled that of a ghostly gigantic ape, with beady white eyes and darkish lavender fur.
Spider-Man landed on all fours and his eyes widened when he realised that his fellow heroes were unaware of the strange creature that was rushing towards him.
"Guys, look out!" Spider-Man exclaimed.
The other Avengers hastily turned at the sound of Spider-Man's voice and stared shockingly at the dark shape that was heading their way. Before the shape could hurt any of them, Captain America grabbed Bruce and dived out of the way along with Iron Man. Thor, however, stood his ground and prepared to clobber the creature with Mjolnir.
With Mjolnir sparkling with pure lightning, Thor charged towards the creature and went to smack it with his hammer. Strangely, the shape just fazed through both Thor and the hammer like a ghost and rematerialised behind him.
"Odin's beard!" Thor shouted out as he turned to the shape. The creature wasted no time and backhanded the god of thunder across the clearing, smacking him against a tree.
With Thor out of the fight for now, the ghost ape set it's attention on Spider-Man. Once the two made eye contact with each other, the ape snorted out purple smoke from it's nostrils and lunged towards the webslinger. Spider-Man, using his agility and spider-sense, was able to jump out of the way just as the dark ape punched a hole in the ground.
"Alright King Kong, time to web you up!" Spider-Man said as he prepared to use his trusty web shooters against the webs.
However when Spider-Man activated his web shooters, no webs came out. Like with Iron Man's gauntlets, sparks were sent flying instead.
"Ow! What the?" Spider-Man muttered, shaking his hands from the sudden shock the web shooters gave out before frowning. "Oh great…"
Despite Spider-Man's web shooter malfunctioning, that didn't stop the dark ape from attacking the wallcrawler. Seeing that not even Thor could touch the creature, Spider-Man chose to instead dodge and evade the dark shape as long as he can.
"Um, guys? A little help here!" Spider-Man called out to Iron Man, Captain America and Bruce as he continued to swerve around the ape's punches.
Captain America adjusted his shield as he got onto his feet. "Tony, look after Bruce. I'll go help Spider-Man." he ordered Iron Man before sprinting in the direction of the Ape and Spider-Man.
"Now would be a good time to get angry, Bruce…" Iron Man said as he turned to Banner.
Bruce sighed, knowing that it'll be awhile until he gets back in control once the Hulk takes over. "Alright…" he muttered reluctantly as he stood up.
Banner starts to attempt to release the Hulk from within by getting as emotional as he can. His skin began to turn green around his neck and his fingers. However, try as he might, Bruce couldn't get Hulk to emerge as quickly as the green goliath usually does.
"Bruce? Please don't tell me that Hulk's suddenly taking a vacation…" Iron Man murmured.
"I… I don't know what's going on… he just won't come out!" Bruce huffed.
Iron Man scoffed. "It's not like him to chicken out of smashing something… even if it can pass through him!"
"It's not that!" Bruce denied. "Normally Hulk and I are both in the driver's seat but this time, it feels like Hulk was forced to go to the back seat. Like he was knocked out or something…"
As Bruce was panicking about why Hulk wasn't coming out, Iron Man briefly looked behind the gamma scientist and saw more beady white eyes in the depths of the trees and bushes. Immediately Iron Man rushed behind Bruce and held out his hands, preparing to attack whoever the eyes belonged to.
"Bruce, get back!" he barked before calling out to Captain America, who was still fighting the ape with Spider-Man. "Cap! There's more incoming!"
As the white eyes revealed themselves, both Iron Man and Bruce were surprised to see that they weren't apes but a group of ten to fifteen small goblin-like creatures. Like the ape, the creatures were covered in dark energy but what separated them from the ape was the fact that they looked like they were made from the Earth itself. Some crawled on the ground while a few used wings, the ones with wings resembling more like mutant flies.
As the small creatures started to close in on Iron Man and Bruce, the armoured avenger tried to use his repulsors against them. But like in the crater, they didn't work.
"Shit! My repulsors are still down!" Iron Man exclaimed. "Let's try something else…"
Iron Man tried to activate a missile from his arm. Nothing. Next he tried to use his shoulder missiles. Again, nothing. Trying all his weapon capabilities from his lasers to his pulse bolts, nothing seemed to be working.
"Urgh! Come on! Work!" Iron Man grunted. "Activate flares!"
Surprisingly, red sparks blasted from two disks on each side of Iron Man's hips. The sheer light of the flares made the small creatures stop in their tracks, lifting their arms to shield themselves from the light. Once the flares died down however, the creatures restarted their approach on the heroes.
"Well that's just great…" Iron Man mumbled as he and Bruce slowly backed away from the small creatures.
Meanwhile the fight between Spider-Man, Captain America and the dark ape has started to escalate. Thor had shaken off the initial hit from the ape and also joined in the fight again, his blows being as unsuccessful. Without the use of his web shooters, Spider-Man was more of a distraction to the beast while Captain America threw his shield to knock it out despite the fact that ape would dissipate whenever the heroes made a move of it.
"It's no use, our attacks aren't affecting him!" Captain America muttered as he caught his shield after it failed to hit the dark ape once again.
Both Thor and Spider-Man went to Cap's side. "I've never seen such a beast… it's power rivals that of the shadow creature we fought earlier!" Thor observed.
"I'll say! But at least the shadow guy actually let us hit him!" Spider-Man pointed out. "Any ideas, Cap?"
Captain America shook his head regretfully. "I've got nothing…"
All of a sudden, Iron Man and Bruce, who was slowly backing away from the small creatures, made their way to where the others were and also stood side-by-side with them.
"Bad news Cap… we've got more company." Iron Man informed.
"Anything from the Hulk?" Captain America asked, hoping for some good news.
"I'm trying, Steve!" Bruce replied. "He's just not coming out!"
"Well Avengers, I hate to say it… but we're outnumbered and outgunned." Iron Man said as the creatures drew closer and closer. "Gentlemen, it's been an honour fighting alongside you…"
"Don't talk like that, Tony!" Captain America barked. "We'll get through this!"
"Verily…" Thor muttered, spinning his hammer frantically. "If we're going to go out… we're going to go out fighting!"
As the Avengers prepared to take their final stand, a sudden array of glowing arrows were fired from the trees behind them. The arrows hit a few of the small creatures in the chest while the dark ape was struck right in the forehead. Once the arrows impacted the creatures, they immediately disappeared in a cloud of dust.
The Avengers stood in awe as a figure dashed out of the trees, furiously shooting more arrows with their longbow at the creatures while jumping over the team at a great height. The figure was slightly obscured by the sunlight so no one could see what they looked like.
Eventually the figure revealed themselves as they landed in front of the Avengers, causing the remaining creatures to back off in intimidation. When the figure lowered their hood, the team was surprised to see that the figure wasn't human but rather an anthropomorphic cheetah. The cheetah had pointed ears, resembling that of a serval, and big black spots that covered his entire body. The cheetah wore a tunic that made him look like Robin Hood, along with a hooded coat that obscured most of his appearance from the back.
"Get back!" the cheetah called out as he pulled out more arrows from his quiver and fired them at the remaining dark creatures. "To the trees!"
The Avengers stared in silence as the cheetah managed to take out everything in his path. They noticed that the arrows the cheetah was firing were illuminated in a light purple, as if it was covered in some type of magic. In this world, Earth's Mightiest Heroes didn't feel very mighty as this particular cheetah warrior managed to take on these creatures without breaking a sweat.
"I would listen to the cat if I were you…" A voice muttered.
The team darted around to see a small yellow humanoid dragonfly hovering beside them, slightly smirking at the sight at the Avengers' perplexed faces.
"Tony… did that dragonfly just talk?" Captain America whispered to Iron Man.
"It would seem so…" Iron Man replied quietly.
"Who are you guys?" Spider-Man asked the dragonfly.
The dragonfly grinned. "The name's Sparx," he introduced before gesturing to the cheetah. "That right there is Hunter… don't worry, we're here to help."
Ultimately, the cheetah that was called Hunter shot enough arrows at the creatures that anything that remained exchanged glances at one another and decided to bolt in the opposite direction. The Avengers watched as the creatures scampered back into the bushes and disappeared into the shadows.
After his victory, Hunter slung his bow on his shoulder and turned to the team. "Is everyone alright?" he wondered calmly.
"Thanks to you," Captain America said. "I suppose a thanks is in order…"
Hunter smiled. "You are most welcome… but it's best we move away from here, they are likely to bring reinforcements."
The cheetah then fished something out of his pocket, from the distance it looked like a roundish white rock with a blue symbol that resembled an 'S' engraved in the stone. Before Hunter could do anything with it, Sparx quickly flew over right to his eyesight.
"Hold on, hold on… before you use that thing, are you sure these are the guys he was talking about?" Sparx queried, giving a quick glance to the Avengers. "These guys dress funny… especially the red and blue one!"
"The Chronicler sent us to find a group of individuals that was being attacked by the shadow creatures so I would say so, Sparx." Hunter responded.
Sparx frowned. "Fine… but don't blame me when the guy with the hammer bludgeons you to the ground."
Hunter rolled his eyes at the dragonfly's lack of faith in The Chronicler and held up the white stone towards the trees. Instantly the stone started to glow brighter until a ring of light appeared around Hunter's paw. A ball of light soon materialised out of the blue right in front of him and slowly expanded into a portal that showed a large dark room, only illuminated by a massive hourglass that glowed a bright blue.
"This way, we'll be safe here." Hunter said.
"Wait, wait… sorry, Hunter was it?" Iron Man queried as he stepped forward to face the cheetah. "Could you explain to us what's going on here? Or perhaps where we are or where we're going?"
"Rest assured, there will be time for explanations later… I promise you." Hunter murmured.
At that moment both Hunter and Sparx stepped into the portal without hesitation, leaving the Avengers alone in the clearing. The team just stood, unsure whether to follow suit or not. On one hand, this cheetah just saved them from a bunch of creatures with his archery skills that could rival Hawkeye's. But on the other hand, they had no idea where they were heading to… they didn't know if it was safe or they were heading into a trap.
"So who's going first?" Iron Man questioned the group. "Thor?"
Thor was about to move when Captain America stopped him. "Leader's first…" the super soldier then suggested.
Under his faceplate, Iron Man gave the portal a nervous look. "Thanks, Cap…"
Iron Man then slowly made his way to the portal, the rest of the Avengers following closely behind him.
Before entering through the magical portal, the armoured avenger took a deep breath before stepping over the light barrier.
Whatever or whoever is behind that portal, even if some of their powers are depleted, the Avengers will be ready for anything…
Woah, that was an action-packed chapter… best to leave it here for now.
Anyway, hopefully this month we'll be continuing Love of My Life… if I stop procrastinating haha. As for next month? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe something else… just depends on how I'm feeling really. I really need to work on my release schedule.
Until then, this is TARDIS1039… signing off, Allons-y!
