Oh. My. God. I really must apologize for not updating this in so long, but life has been a hefty struggle as of late... Sorry? I don't know. Here's chapter 11. I had some serious writer's block that wouldn't have been as bad if it hadn't been for some more personal problems that I'm still struggling with and a decrease in my access to the internet. I'm sure the chapter will show that since I was kind of all over the place with how I wanted it to go, but I think it's more filler than anything else. Tell me how it is. I'll fix it or whatever if there are any problems. If not, all the better. Read on.
"I think now's the time for that surprise," Adrian said as he, Junn, and Bilbo were slowly making their way through the cluttered streets on their way back to the little hideout in Central Park. Along the way, Adrian had tiredly made the clutter, broken things, and debris disappear or repair itself along as many roads as he could, but he stopped a while before he spoke since Bilbo had pointed out that his nose was starting to bleed. He pulled out a small container, but then paused, "I think I'll wait until we actually get back to Central Park. Wait, Junn. Where are you going?"
Junn didn't answer as she was too preoccupied with catching her baby who had somehow managed to climb out of her bag and start crawling away.
"Oh," Adrian chuckled, "Well, once you catch your baby, why don't we just stop at those glass Chitauri?"
"Why would we do that?" 'Mark' asked incredulously.
Adrian shrugged, "I don't know, I had this feeling I should go there all of a sudden."
"Well, I would like to analyze your work in more detail. Maybe we can see what happens if you smash one into pieces, pulverize it, and then burn it with a vengeance," Junn added cheerfully
Both Bilbo and Adrian stared at Junn oddly.
"What?"
"I had an idea, you know," Stark said tiredly from his spot around the table.
"Really?" Barton said, before taking a bite of shawarma, "Why do we need to know?"
"Well, Legolas, it includes you five, so I figured you'd want to hear it."
This got the group's attention somewhat and Steve glanced up from watching his plate and asked, "Are you going to explain?"
"Well, yes. See, Loki and his Glowstick of Destiny are not the only threat that's ever going to come about, correct? Therefore, since I don't think Shield is even close to being ready for some of the superhuman threats that could be out there, I thought it best if we continued our little band of avenging vigilantes. I haven't fully thought out any details, but I was thinking we set up in my tower once it's fixed and renovated since it's large enough to hold all of us. I mean, there's even a possible threat out there right now and Thor and I have seen its work!"
This gained everyone's full attention.
"You've 'seen its work'? What do you mean?" Bruce asked.
Thor spoke up before Tony, "While fighting we came upon a large group of Chitauri, but they were all encased in a thick layer of glass."
"Yeah, I estimate that it was around six-inches thick. They were basically made into giant glass statues."
Steve pondered this for a moment, "Maybe you should show us these
'glass statues' once everyone has finished their food Then we can plan things further."
Everyone nodded in assent and continued to eat. Once everyone finished they stood up and Steve headed to the register, "May as well pay. They kind of deserve it for giving us food so soon after the battle."
After he paid the lady upfront, he was surprised when she handed him a phone, but wouldn't clarify what it was for when he asked. He decided there shouldn't be too much harm in keeping it for analysis later.
"Alright," Tony said once Steve got back, "they're this way."
The group followed him out of the shop and down the street.
"You know, they look pretty funny in some of their poses. Ha! This one had just tripped!" Adrian heard 'Mark' laugh as he walked through the small glass forest. He followed the laughter to find Bilbo indicating a Chitauri in a forward-flailing position while doubled over laughing. Feeling amused as well, Adrian looked through the glass figures with the adorable dragon-like baby in his arms to spy Junn smashing one of the figures with a sledgehammer and a snarl on her face.
'Where'd she get a sledgehammer? Anyways, note to self: Never get on Junn's bad side.'
Junn was quite happy, it may not show on her snarling face, but oho, she was happy. Seeing the Chitauri monster turning to bits under the swings of the large hammer she had pilfered from a construction site, satiated her lust to destroy the species slightly, but when she struck road she paused before turning to another and starting to smash it as well. She finished that one and then assessed the remains. Best to do something about them right? She called for Adrian to come over.
On hearing his name, Adrian weaved back through the figures, careful to not bump the baby against any of the glass, and paused when he found Junn panting with a small smile on her face.
"Did you need something Junn? I hope you managed to calm down enough so that we don't have need to worry about indirect harm to Arashi."
"Well, there's no need for that. I entrusted him to you knowing he'd be fine. Anyways, do you have any ideas for how I can burn these disgusting remains?"
Adrian stared at Junn for a moment, "That's simple, but I can't really hold Arashi if I'm going to do this."
"Alright hand the thing over to me," came a reply from nearby. Adrian turned to find Bilbo standing there with his arms out to receive the child. Adrian carefully placed the baby in his arms, making sure he was holding Arashi right. When he was satisfied with Bilbo's grip, he turned back and (with a warning to Junn to step back) he held his hands over the rubble, closed his eyes, and focused. After a couple seconds the large pile of rubble turned bright red and emitted an intense heat. While this caused Junn to start perspiring, Adrian seemed unaffected as the heat permeated the area. His eyes burst open with a dim red glow, he snapped his fingers, and the rubble fully melted in a burst of flames.
After a few moments Adrian's eyes lost the dim red glow and he assessed his work. Nothing but black ashes and a mound of molten glass. It was then that the excess heat the process had generated hit him, "Well, that was interesting."
"Was that all really necessary?" Bilbo asked.
"I didn't need to snap or focus for as long as I did, but I thought it'd be more fun to add a bit of flair… Kind of like a lot of superheroes do, but I hadn't thought of it that way before… "
"It did make it seem more intense and powerful," Junn added
"Yeah. I guess that's the point. Kind of like how some animals puff up to intimidate predators."
"Oh? …I see now."
"Wait," Adrian paused in his walking, "Are we really discussing this right now?"
"Well we were, but now we're discussing discussing it."
"How about not going further? Oh and you don't have to continue carrying my young one, - Actually I never caught your name."
"It's Bilbo, but in front of anyone who doesn't know my actual 'form' or my real name it's 'Mark'. Please keep that in mind when around others."
"Oh sure, but yeah. You can give me my maiori. I'm sure there's no danger incoming."
"Myo-what-i?" Bilbo asked with an eyebrow arched.
"She means her baby," Adrian told Bilbo as he stepped around one of the last Chitauri statues and sped up to a jog. Junn happily kicked its head, grimacing when the glass didn't yield to her foot, before holding out her arms. Bilbo carefully passed a sleeping Arashi to her and she settled him into the sling hanging on her hip. Arashi shifted and almost let out a cry before the sway of the sling from Junn's walking calmed him back to sleep.
Junn smiled down at him before asking somewhat loudly, "So where are we going again?"
"There they are," Tony spoke once the statues came into view.
"What? How did this happen?" Steve asked as he analyzed one of the statues.
"Of course I know what the cause of this was. It was your line of questioning," Tony snarked.
Steve ignored him as he stepped further into the glass forest. After a few moments he got to a spot of intense heat, "What on earth?"
"Crack a window! Why is it so warm?"
"It probably has something to do with what encased these Chitauri in glass," Natasha said.
"Search the area to see what you can find and we'll meet up to discuss in a few minutes," Steve lightly ordered the group before walking into the mass of glass.
It wasn't long before he noticed the Chitauri started to thin and he thought he heard a voice ahead say, "So where are we going again?"
"Junn," a british voice with an underlying purr chimed out, "Right now I think that's just ridiculous to ask. Adrian is clearly leading us back to a safer place, we fondly call it our 'hideout' currently… My apologies, that was actually rather rude."
Steve sped up and craned his neck to try to see around the statues, but the statues were against him and he stumbled over the raised surface of one of their feet. Easily catching himself on a nearby statue, he listened for those voices again, but didn't hear them. He debated chasing after them, recognizing the name 'Adrian', but decided it'd likely be more beneficial to have a group search instead. He noted the direction they went and walked back to where the others were analyzing the statues.
"Impressive. It seems the glass is in almost perfectly even layers," Steve heard Bruce say.
"True, but how did that happen and still leave the road between the Chitauri glassless?"
"Wouldn't you be the one to figure that out Stark? You are, after all, the 'genius' here," Steve spoke interrupting the short scientific dialogue.
"Why yes Capsicle, wouldn't want your intelligence ruining anything. Didn't your mother ever tell you it was rude to interrupt an important conversation?"
Ignoring Starks snide remarks Steve spoke, "I heard some people leaving the area and figured it was important since they mentioned a hideout and seemed suspicious."
"And you didn't follow them?" Natasha asked.
"They were headed towards Central Park and they were too far ahead of me to properly follow and I figured it'd be better to have a group searching than one person who didn't really see where they went when they got too far away."
"What are we standing here debating for? If they're our only suspects than we should go after them, shouldn't we?" Clint talked over his shoulder as he started going back the way Steve came. Rather than say anything else, everyone just followed suit and started to fan out on the way to Central Park.
"Here it is," Adrian said grandly as he swept aside some branches, "Our little hideout… Maybe we should give it a name? How about… Any ideas? I'm drawing a blank."
Bilbo perked up, "How about 'The Shire?' Or 'Fable's Haven?'"
"Hmm…"
"Fabulacomitatus?" Junn added.
"Fab-what-us?" Bilbo asked for clarification.
"The closest meaning is a combination of words in my first language that is a combination of those two: Fabula from 'fable,' comita from comitatus, a word closest to meaning 'shire', and tus from portus loosely meaning harbor or haven in this language I am somehow speaking and have knowledge of."
"Yeah. How is that exactly?"
"Honestly, I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is a mysterious stranger who visited me on my home planet before those Chitauri lanions killed my kind. She seemed to place a spell over me."
"Okay you two. I'm stopping this before it gets into a long discussion," Adrian said, "I think we can call it something else instead. I'm thinking a combination of our names, 'Jilbian', or simply 'home.'"
"Jilbian sounds good and we can always refer to it as home anyways," Junn shrugged.
"Yeah. It isn't copyrighted or complicated to say," Bilbo agreed.
"Now that that's settled, why don't I set up some space for you and your baby?"
"That would be nice, thank you."
"Okay, just need to make a bed… Would you mind turning into an animal to save space?"
"Oh! No, I just need one to touch."
"Alright, now some privacy stuff… A place to put any valuables or personal items… Some clothes… I'll have to find some way for her to learn more about earth and the cultures of it. I wonder if I can find some history textbooks and all that at the library… I'll put this here for the baby… There we go!" Adrian stood back and assessed his work. Junn stepped next to him, mouth slightly agape.
"That's very impressive!"
Bilbo glanced over from his area and didn't think much of it, all he could see was what looked like a thin white screen closing off a small darkened area. What he didn't see was a small chest with a small crib attached next to a medium-sized pet bed. There was also a little play area for Arashi with some bits and pieces of playthings.
"I figured Arashi would appreciate some things to do or burn if he's capable of spitting fire as a dragon."
"That's true, I hadn't really thought of that," Junn nodded, "Why is it dark though?"
"No specific reason other than I figured we'd all enjoy some rest after the battle and you would appreciate a darker sleeping place. I can easily make it lighter if you want."
"No, a good rest actually sounds rather nice. Will you watch Arashi while I am resting?"
"Sure, but I don't know why you're so trusting of me despite only meeting me today."
"I don't know. It's just a feeling… And besides you've given me plenty of reason to trust you enough to handle him already."
"Alright," Adrian assented, scooping up Arashi and going to step through an opening in the privacy screen.
"Wait!" Adrian stopped and glanced back at Junn's outcry, "Can you give me an animal for-" She broke off nodding towards the bed.
"Oh! Right. Hold on." Junn watched as Adrian set Arashi down and again changed form into a little dog and let Junn touch him. Changing back to normal Adrian scooped up the youngling and finally exited the area. Bilbo glanced at them before he assumed his cat form and curled into a ball on his bed.
"How would you like to go for a little walk?" Adrian inquired at the small dragon with a little smile, "Maybe I could show you the little garden I started yesterday. It grew surprisingly fast I assume, but best check up on it."
A small burble accompanied by a puff of smoke was all Adrian got for a response before Arashi snuggled further into his arms, "I'll take that as a yes."
Adrian walked away from the small clearing, humming a small tune. He was surprised when he felt a rumbling against his arm, like an amplified cat's purr. How adorable, the small baby was dozing! Adrian smiled down at the small form nuzzled against his arm, before he assessed the small garden he just arrived at.
He had divided it into three parts: aesthetic, flowering plants, herbal plants, and produce plants. The flowering ones he had found in the nearby area amazingly had buds already and the seeds he had managed to get from a grateful stranger who had been handing out packets of them for a promotion of the company he was working for were sprouting.
"Wow. That was fast. So the whole 'trees creating a roof' thing was me. I wasn't sure whether or not I had imagined talking to that tree. I did collide pretty hard with those rocks after all. Interesting…"
Crouching down, Adrian held his hand out to one of the flowers that looked near-to-blooming and focused once it was nestled against his hand. Arashi shifted in his arms, wakened by the sudden movement, and hopped onto the ground nearby. Assessing the human, he lazily blinked when the flower bloomed and nearby flowers angled their buds towards the outstretched hand.
Pulling away his hand, Adrian finally looked beyond the freshly bloomed flower and arched an eyebrow at the sudden change in the nearby plants. Now that he confirmed he had some modicum of influence over plant life, the tree he had spoken to came to the forefront of his mind. The seeds! Adrian hastily dug in his pockets and sighed in relief once he felt a small bunch of seeds in the left pocket. For a moment there he thought he lost them…
"Maybe I should plant them here? I mean this is where the tree was originally from… No, the tree told me to plant them in my garden. I don't think this will be a permanent garden, so I'll wait until I find a more permanent home. Now though, I think I should make that call."
Adrian pulled out the small container, emptied it of its contents of apeculiar device connected to what looked like a walkie-talkie, and picked up Arashi again before he dialed something into the device, "I just hope they took the phone. I'll wait a few minutes before trying again later."
Steve was surprised when he felt a sudden vibration in his pocket. Grabbing the source from his pocket, he found it to be the phone. Someone anonymous was calling. He glanced around and saw that none of the others were nearby, except Stark, who was entering something from a paper into a tablet-like device.
"Stark," Tony glanced up at him from the device, "Are you able to track anonymous callers?"
Tony laughed, "Easily. Why?"
"I have suspicions about the caller who's calling me on this phone," he held it up for Tony to see.
"Where'd you get that low-tech garbage?"
"The woman working the register at the shawarma joint gave it to me when I paid, but wouldn't tell me why. Now I'm getting a call and I feel like finding the caller might be a step towards finding out the reason behind all this stuff."
"Fine. Hand the trash here. Once I get JARVIS onto tracking the caller you can answer it."
"Will it take long? If we take too long to answer the caller will stop."
"Well, give a couple seconds and JARVIS will be on the case, but you need to answer the call to distract them since it will take a minute or so to track their location."
"Fine," Steve placed the phone to his ear, "Hello?"
"Ahh, yes. Hello," a deep, raspy voice answered, "I believe I have some information for you, Mr. Rogers, if you'll accept it. I do know, of course, that Mr. Stark likely has his Artificially Intelligent 'butler' tracking my location. However, it will likely take longer than expected as I am not using an easily trackable mode of contacting you on that phone."
"Why did you call me?" Steve looked up at Tony and mouthed, 'Found them yet?"
Tony looked frustrated before mouthing back, 'No.'
"I am simply calling to ask you to warn Tony that the Mandarin he will six moons soon face is a front to distract from a Potts' friend. If I were him, I'd enable very many autonomous fighter suits he can control. Tell Thor that Jane will need him before she finds an aether most dangerous that awakens dark Malekiths in nearly a year. And you, Steve. Two times around the sun and a friend you thought long lost will come after you and the agency will be found with an infestation of Hydras. I insist that you all work to prevent these events and ruin the chances of these threats from coming back at a later time. Now, I will leave you with this information. Hopefully, I eventually talk to you in person, but I doubt that will happen. I'm sure if I met any of you, I would immediately be taken in for questioning. Maybe I'll send one of my allies to work with you, but they will not know anything worth your while. Hang onto this phone. I will eventually contact you on it again. Farewell and good luck."
"Wait! How did you know I had this phone?"
"Simple. I had that Shawarma waitress give you the phone since I knew you'd be there. Now, I know Tony may be close to figuring out how to track me since he likely figured out it wasn't a satellite signal I was using, so goodbye," the caller hung up.
"Tony?" Steve inquired.
"Nope. I didn't even get close. I had JARVIS trying to track the caller through satellite signals, but JARVIS informed me that there was no signal to track that way, so I was just starting to think of other ways they could be contacting you. Why did you let them hang up? From what I heard, you weren't even trying to distract them."
"I didn't need to do much, they had a lot to say, but they were aware you would be trying to track them. He even told me you likely would figure out he wasn't using satellite signal, but he didn't let slip how he was calling the phone," he started forwards and grabbed some paper from the small pile Tony had stacked next to him, "Do you have a pen I can use?"
"Sure, but I'd rather you not scribble over those notes until I have them entered into the database. Bruce wrote them when we were analysing the statues. Some theories and whatnot. How he deals with such simple things as pen and paper for his data tracking is beyond me."
"There's just something I need to write down. I'll write it on the back."
Steve tried to remember all the caller had said and wrote it down. Looking it over, he nodded his head and handed the paper back to Stark. Stark looked at him before he entered the last smidgen of data into his database before reading what Capsicle had written on the back.
He arched an eyebrow, "'Mandarin I will six moons soon face'? What the-"
"I think he means months, like how there's usually a full moon every month," Steve interrupted before he had to deal with Stark's slight proclivity for vulgar language.
"Sure. I was thinking along those lines, but who the hell is this Mandarin that's supposed to distract me from Pepper's 'friend?"
"That's what he meant? I had no idea what he meant when he said 'a Pott's friend'.'"
"Of course you didn't," Tony said before he muttered, "Autonomous fighter suits? I might just look into that…"
Steve was about to respond when he heard the others approaching.
"Find anything?"
Yes! It's finished and up. Beyond the beginning note, I'd like to tell you guys to not expect weekly updates. I can't spend enough time at a computer writing to do that. Also, I know this isn't very relevant, but I won't be around any technology next week, so won't be able to work on this as much. I'm also debating whether or not to fully pause in my attempts to update. I doubt I will though. Okay. Give me some feedback in reviews, favorite, or follow the story. I love any feedback so long as it's not intending to cause harm. Constructive criticism is nice, but do realize that I'm a more amateur writer than the expectations professionals, such as J.K. Rowling, live up to. I'm rambling because I'm tired and it's late so...
Rock on my fellow guys and gals!