A/N: Loving it. So the battle is started and there will be a lot of chaos to write. I am going to make it as comprehensible as I can and try to keep it from getting confusing, but I apologize now for it being everywhere. I want all the stories told, if I can tell them
OOOOOOO
"Í am groot?"
Peter was distracted from the awesome – and scary – sight of everything going on around him and shrugged.
"What's a peanut gallery? I don't know."
"It's a term for the people in the theater who have the cheap – and furthest from the stage – seats," Strange answered, absently, his hands up and ready. "An insult, obviously."
"And not wasted on Thanos and his buddies," Natasha noted, watching as the commanders of the alien army were given an order, and the creatures that had been only half-heartedly trying the shields were suddenly rushing it, ignoring the way the energy barrier tore their bodies to shreds as they tried to force their way through it. "Now he's annoyed."
She had her guns out, now, even though she wasn't pointing them at anything, just yet, and Peter knew that she approved of the way Tony was handling things. She had told him more than once that an angry enemy was one who would be more prone to making mistakes. Tony obviously knew that, too, and was doing anything that he could to get Thanos off balance.
"Stay close," Strange said to Peter.
"And activate your helmet," came Tony's order, given as the billionaire flew overhead with Pepper beside him, obviously heading the other direction to see how the shield on the other side of the compound was holding, but still aware of where Peter was and what he was doing.
Peter did as he was told. It was more protection, but it also afforded him the chance to hear the chatter from the others through Karen's communications.
And there was plenty to hear.
OOOOOOOO
"The shield's holding," came Fury's calm, deep voice.
"No fluctuations in energy output," Stark agreed.
It was crazy, Tony thought, watching as on every curve of the shield, hundreds - even thousands - of the dog-like creatures were sacrificing themselves trying to get through the barrier. Worse, the action was having the desired effect. While the power wasn't varying at any section of the shield, the overwhelming forces those bodies were putting on the shield actually dimmed it enough to allow some of the creatures to get through.
They were immediately dispatched by snipers on the roof of the compound, but more and more were making it through, scrambling over the fried corpses of the ones that had gone before them. Soon there were small groups of them inside the barrier, and more making it through every minute.
"Carol!" This was Clint's voice. "A large grouping just broke off heading south."
Friday's sensors confirmed what Barton's sharp gaze had noticed. Not only was it more than a thousand of the dogs, but there were giant ape-looking things – maybe something out of one of Tony's D&D campaigns – and a number of the flying turtles. All heading away from the compound and clearly going toward the south – and the innocent people sleeping only an hour away.
"On it!"
A portal suddenly appeared in the sky right above the compound roof – and above Wong, who had created it – and Wanda and Carol both vanished into it, appearing an instant later outside of the shield. Friday followed their progress as they headed south to intercept – and relayed the warnings that were also being sent to the guard units who were still evacuating people between the compound and the city, and the line of regular army, who were still forming up their line in the sand some forty miles south.
"He's forcing us to divide our resources," Steve's voice said – and he was just as calm as Fury. "Watch your backs, people. Carol? Keep an eye on those carriers. Make sure they stay where they are. If you get a break, try to cripple them to avoid more creatures being sent down."
"Will do."
She had her hands full with what she was doing, just then, but when she and Wanda cleared the area, her confident tone told them that space would be her next stop. Until then, though, the stone columns kept slamming to the earth, and the shock troops kept coming.
OOOOOO
"This is insane," Clint said from the roof, his bow in his hand and his arm moving effortlessly as he picked off creatures that were making their way through the shield. "Who throws away their people like this?"
"Someone who doesn't care what price he pays," Gamora answered. "As long as he gets what he wants."
"These guys overrun the compound and nothing would stop them from killing Peter, too. He has to know that."
"He'll assume that Peter is in a protected room. Once you're all dead and out of the way, he'll go through the place room by room looking for him."
"Insane…" Clint said, again, looking up as Ironman flew by, a volley of tiny missiles coming from his shoulders and taking down a line of dogs that were rushing at the Wakandans to the north of the building.
Rescue was right behind him, guarding his back and picking off the few that he missed on the fly-by.
"No one ever called him the sane Titan," Gamora said, turning her attention from overhead to the edge of the shield where Thanos was still standing, watching and waiting as the people inside the shield rebuffed his first attempt to get through to them. She recognized the forms of Nebula, Maw and Proxima Midnight all standing near him, ignoring the chaos raging on around them. "Be ready," she warned, noticing that Maw and Nebula were both moving, now. "Something else is coming."
OOOOOOO
The shield was good, Thanos had to admit. But it wasn't enough to hold back all of his minions, and he had plenty of them to throw at it. It was taking longer than he wanted, though, and he was impatient.
"I want that shield down," he said to Maw, watching as more of the dogs made it through the barrier, only to be mowed down by a line of fire from overhead.
"The building must have a control room," Nebula told her father. "Get me inside, and I will disable the mechanisms keeping it in place."
Thanos nodded, turning back to the shield – and approving as several more dogs made it through, and seemed to be making their way through the line of defense to get closer to the main building.
"Focus the attack on the left side," he ordered. "Make a diversion and get her into the building."
Maw nodded and barked his own orders to the others, then he gestured for Nebula to move to the other side with him, and waited.
OOOOOOOO
"Something's up," Tony said, watching the display in the suit and noticing immediately when the attacking forces suddenly started to focus on one section of the shield, throwing not only the dogs, but the apes, and even a couple of flying turtles at the same spot in an obvious effort to overrun the shielding. "Friday, reinforce that section – make sure we don't allow any lapse in the power to the rest, though, when we compensate."
"Gotcha."
He, Rescue and Quill suddenly found themselves targets by a handful of bipedal creatures that had managed to get into the shielding with some alien surface to air missiles of some kind, and Quill whooped with a mixture of excitement and chagrin as he dodged what could only be called a laser beam, and returned fire, instantly, tearing several of them apart.
Only to have more come.
The compound grounds were suddenly swarming with the dogs as the press worked, and that section of the shield weakened, further, allowing more and more creatures to pour through the barrier until Friday managed to reinforce the power fluctuations and slow the flow of enemies.
Tony was hard-pressed on all sides, now, keeping his eye on Pepper, Peter and the rest of the input that Friday was tossing at him. Rescue was doing amazing; Pepper was fine – with Vision right there in her ear to show her where she needed to be and to make sure that she had all the AI support that she needed.
He saw Steve, Okoye and T'Challa all ganging up on an impossibly large creature that had made it through the shield, only to find the king of Wakanda and Captain America in between it and the building it had been told to destroy. The dogs were everywhere, now, it seemed, and there were magical energy bolts flying from the magicians on the roof, and Stephen, who was still making a strong stand with Natasha and Peter, who was using his webbing to tangle the legs and mouths of the creatures that were getting closer and closer to them, allowing each to be dispatched easily by a warrior – or by Natasha.
"We're doing great, guys," Tony said, the red dots on his HUD so overwhelming that they weren't even dots, any longer, but was one massive red screen. "Keep it up."
OOOOOOO
Peter's quarters were quiet. There were muffled thuds and explosions going on outside the window, which had Jack and Nutmeg slightly on edge, but no danger had presented itself to them. The lab was watching the door, waiting for Steve to return and let him lose, while Nutmeg was a bit more anxious; his fur poofed out, and his little body tense.
There was the sound of yelling, and the scrabbling noise of claws on the corridor flooring as something large and heavy ran by. Jack barked a nervous warning, and there was suddenly a low growl from the other side of the door, and the sound of something sniffing, noisily.
The lab growled, too, warning whatever it was that he wasn't a pushover, and the growling on the other side of the door responded with its own challenge. Heavy claws scratched against the door, and a soft snarl made Jack's growl deepen.
With a sudden surge, the door was broken in, pieces of it crashing to the floor. A huge dog-like form stood in the entrance, head down and beady eyes looking in the interior of the room as it looked for its prey. Jack snarled, teeth bared, hackles raised in an instinctive awareness of the need to fight. The creature growled a warning, advancing into the room with confidence, its much smaller opponent not even worthy of being on guard.
Which was its undoing, because the little yellow kitten on the back of the sofa struck before the thing even realized he was in the room – much less that he posed a much bigger danger to it than Jack. The kitten opened his mouth, and huge tentacles emerged, grabbing the creature implacably in their grasp and killing it in an instant before it could even let loose a strangled yelp of surprise. A moment later the thing was vanishing down the kitten's gullet.
Jack looked around, obviously confused at the sudden disappearance of his challenger, and then headed for the opening that had once been the door to Peter's quarters. He'd find Steve, somewhere.
Nutmeg sat on the back of the sofa, cleaning his paws, and then his face, calmly, purring loudly, as he did. A few minutes later, he, too, left Peter's quarters, unwilling to stay where he'd been left.