A New Age on the Horizon
On the main level of Avengers Tower, a SHIELD transport hovers for a few moments before landing on the deck. Tony sees the aircraft and lets out a tiring sigh.
"Jarvis, alert everyone to get up here. We have some surprise guests."
"Right away, Sir."
Stark sets his alcoholic beverage on the island bar, that is in front of a large display of expensive wines and whiskies, mentally making a note to not keep his drink waiting for too long. He takes his times in walking over towards the SHIELD transport as he keeps his sight on the ramp that is lowering itself to the ground.
Two figures, walking side by side, soon emerge from the transport and head indoors to meet up with the Avengers. The one figure has an average build with short blond hair, clad in all black attire. The other person is also dressed in black clothing, having a very elegant body which is very easy on the eyes of anyone; yet it is deadly to those who dare to bring it harm. With her short crimson hair, she is definitely ready for a right. Tony recognized them immediately.
"Well, what brings you two around?" Tony throws his hand up. "No wait, don't tell me. SHIELD needs our help with some major drug dealers or some plot of a terrorist from overseas."
"Nice to see you too, Stark." Clint takes a couple of quick glances around before noticing Steve entering the room. "Hey Steve."
"Hey Clint." Steve gladly walks over to join the tiny circle of three. "How have you been?"
"I've been great. Thanks. Yourself?"
"I've been great too." Steve looks over to Nat and greet her with a warm smile. "Hey Nat."
"Hey yourself." She throws a smirk his way before getting down to business. "Where is everyone else?"
Tony looks behind him to find that the others hadn't arrived yet. "Well, everyone should be on their way here. Thor, however, is visiting his girlfriend in New Mexico, so he will not be join this spur-of-the-moment get together."
Just then, Trent enters into the room and walks over to the group. "What's with the message, Tony?"
"We'll know as soon as everyone is here. But while we wait, let me introduce to you Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton. You may know them as Black Widow and Hawkeye."
"Yeah. They are in the footage of when the Chitauri race invaded the city." Trent offers hand to them. "Pleasure to meet you two. I'm Trent Revan." Nat shakes his hand first, followed by Clint.
After the formality between Trent, Natasha and Clint, Bruce and Angela make their appearance on the main level. They too walk over to the tiny group gathered on the opposite side of the room.
"Natasha, Clint. Long time, no see."
"It's nice to see you again, Banner," Clint addresses.
"Same here." Natasha greet him warmly, then focuses on the lady next to him.
"Clint, Natasha, this is Angela." Bruce gestures over to her.
Angela, like Trent, offers her hand to shake. "Nice to meet you two."
"Well, since everyone that is here, it's time to get to the heart of the matter. What brings the two of you to Avengers Tower?" Knowing for a fact that this would take some time, Tony walks from the group to get his alcoholic drink. He believes he needs it to get through the unavoidable, long conversation of what SHIELD needs from the Avengers.
Natasha starts telling the events that have happened within the last twelve hours. "It's about Hydra. They have made themselves known and have infiltrated SHIELD."
This immediately gets Steve's full, undivided attention. "Hydra? That's impossible. Hydra died with the Red Skull."
Clint enforces the bad news. "Well then, they are the walking dead, seeing as how some of our forces have revealed their true alliance, uttering the words 'Hail Hydra' and killing dozens of SHIELD personnel. We managed to stop most of them from escaping and going into hiding."
Bruce catches the last statement. "Most? Some of them managed to get away?"
Clint nods and explains this statement in more detail. "One of them did. They waited for the Hydra agents to cause havoc in the base before entering into the base and accessing our highly secured weapons vault."
Tony sees where it's going, but doesn't know how far. "What exactly did they take from the vault?"
Natasha and Clint look briefly at each other before answering the question. "They stole Loki's scepter and made off with it."
That one sentence kills Tony's sarcastic mood, but grows his thirst for alcohol. He heads back over to the bar to refill his glass. Steve crosses his arms and lets out a frustrated sigh. Bruce rubs his hands nervously together while looking away from everyone. Trent and Angela give each other clueless glances, but grasp how serious the situation is since they have read up on some Hydra files that Stark had gathered for Jarvis's database.
It's at this time that Thor flies into Avengers Tower, after visiting his girlfriend Jane for a week. The god of thunder sees that Natasha and Clint are in the tower and talking with his friends and greets them all with a broad smile.
"Lady Romanoff, Barton! To what do we owe this sudden visit?"
Neither one of them answer and, as Thor looks at everyone's quiet demeanor, he knows for a fact that this visit is not for 'old time's sake'. "What has transpired?"
No one immediately answered his question. They all avoided his gaze for a moment, trying to come up with the best way to tell him about the situation. Each of them picture the god of thunder's reaction to the scepter being stolen by an alliance that meant to do harm to the world. Being fearless as she normally is, Natasha breaks the news to him.
"Loki's scepter. It's been stolen."
Thor's grip on Mjölnir tightens, but he remains composed. "Do you know by whom?"
Clint takes the question. "Hydra."
"Do you know where they have taken the scepter?"
"Yes, we had a tracker planted on it since we've assigned what vault to keep it in."
Thor flips Mjölnir into the air and catches it without so much as a glance at it. "Then let's not waste anymore time. The sooner we receive Loki's scepter, the easier it will be for us. However, before we go chasing after it, I would like to discuss where it shall go once we retrieve it."
"Agreed," everyone draws their attention to the tablet in Natasha's hands. After setting it up, she flips it around. "You're on, Fury." Sure enough, the Director of SHIELD is online and gets straight down to business.
"Listen up. Twelve hours ago, one of our hidden SHIELD bases had been infiltrated and its security was brought down from the inside by Hydra forces. They're infiltration and attack allowed for one of their highly skilled assassins to enter the base and break into the weapons vault. They, as you probably know already, stole Loki's scepter. They then shot they way out from the base and disappeared from our sights. That is, until we activated the homing device we planted on the scepter. It recently stopped moving in the country of Sokovia. Once you receive it, I want Thor to send it back to Asgard. That way, it will be out of our reach before any more damage can be caused by it."
Thor vows as the son of Odin. "You have my word that I will make sure it is secured from anyone who seeks to use it."
"Good. I suggest all of you head to Sokovia immediately. Fury out." The screen shuts off, as everyone looks at one another.
"Just for the record," Stark feels as though this needs to be stated. "Fury does not run this team. Steve does." Tony looks over at Steve and Steve returns his gaze. "He has the most experience in leadership, and therefore, we will follow his lead, not Fury's. Call it, Cap."
"Alright. Everyone gather your gear and be in the hangar in ten minutes."
Bruce, always having his suit with him, heads off towards the hangar. Natasha and Clint walk back to their SHIELD transport to gather their gear before heading off to the hangar floor as well. Tony goes to retrieve Mark 43, and he goes to his floor to get his suit and shield. Trent hesitates for a moment before heading off to his floor to retrieve his lightsaber. This catches Angela's attention. She knows why Trent is hesitant.
"Hey Trent. Hold up a moment." Angela rushes over to Trent as they walk side-by-side out of the main room on the floor. "There's something I want to give to you before we leave. Come on."
Trent utters no words as he follows Angela to her floor. The Jedi walks into her room, pulling the top drawer of her nightstand open to retrieve her two lightsabers.
"Here." She tosses one of them to Trent, catching it in his right hand. "I know that you don't want to wield your lightsaber anymore."
"Yeah. Every time I glance at the hilt or the red blade, it reminds me of every single being I slaughtered in the name of Vingarian and his rogue Imperial faction."
"Don't. Don't do that to yourself, Trent. You've changed. You are no longer the Sith that you were." Angela smiles proudly at him. "You are, for all intents and purposes, a Jedi Knight under my guidance. You've come far and I must say that I teaching you all the ways of the Jedi has been rewarding for the both of us."
"Now, enough with chit chat. You still need to get your body armor that Stark made for you before you head up to the hangar."
Trent nods in agreement. "Right. See you up there."
Within five minutes, everyone had gathered their equipment and met up in the hangar of Avengers Tower. Everyone except for Stark. While waiting for the genius to arrive in the hanger, each Avenger decides to talk amongst themselves, most of them asking Clint and Natasha how things have been going with them.
Trent lets the group chat and gently nods at Angela to step away from them so that he can talk to her alone. They both move several yards from them before Angela speaks up.
"What is it Trent?"
"I don't know but I'm sure you do."
Angela gives him a quizzical glance, trying to read his thoughts through his tone of voice and stare he was giving her. No success.
"What do you mean? You can ask me whatever it is you want to ask."
"The question is personal."
"That's alright. I can take it." She crosses her arms in front of her. "I'm a big girl."
A chuckle escapes from Trent. "Alright." He takes in a deep breath, then slowly lets it escape from his lungs. "Are you okay?"
"What kind of a question is that?" She smirks innocently at him. "As you can see, I have no wounds of any kind and I'm standing perfectly on my own two feet."
"I know you are well physically," he rolls his eyes at Angela's answer. "That's not the question I was asking. Let me rephrase it. Are you okay mentally?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Ever since the incident a month ago, you have been acting different. You've been avoiding everyone on purpose by working on your Starfighter. Also, the few times you've taught me some new Force meditations you never did them with me like you have with the other practices you have taught me. So I'll ask again. Are you okay?"
"No," Angela sighs. "No I have not been okay. I have been avoiding everyone on purpose and I have been restricting myself from using the Force in any way. Ever since the magical bond between me and that book has been broken, my control over the Force has altered dramatically. It goes from not being able to use the Force while having complete focus on the task to the Force overacting to just a mere thought. I've banned myself from using the Force and minding my conscious thoughts so that the Force doesn't respond to them."
Trent is shocked at what he hears from Angela. She had been struggling this whole time and somehow had managed to keep this hidden for so long from everyone, even himself. But, he still could tell that Angela had not told him everything.
"There's something else, isn't there?"
"Yes. I've also been having dreams. More like nightmares actually. Each time they vary a bit, but they basically have the same scenario." Angela quickly glances over her shoulder to see that the group of Avengers are still bantering back and worth among themselves, before facing Trent.
"The whole city of New York is in ruins. Buildings in all directions are uttering destroyed or are crumbling to the ground. There are dead people: men, women, children...even infants. The only one left standing in rubble and blood is me."
"Whoa. Angela, wh-why didn't you say anything about this to anyone? If it isn't a dream but a vision of the future, we should warn the others about it.
"No."
"What?! Why?"
"Because it may not be the future at all." Angela calmly explains why her answer to Trent, who was growing more worried about Angela's wellbeing by the minute. "As the famous Master Yoda once said, 'always in motion is the future'. That means that a vision of the future you see may not necessarily come true. The odds are extremely low of it being reality. Besides, there was another part of the dream that I'm more concerned about; and I have a feeling that it will reveal itself very soon."
"On this mission?" Trent doubtingly asks.
"Yes."
Trent nods with an expression of worry on his face. "Alright. but Angela, promise me something. Unless Steve assigns me a part of the mission that separates us, you will allow me to fight by your side so that I keep an eye on you."
Trent's concern for her does not go unnoticed. "Trent, it means a lot to me that you care for my personal safety, but you really don't have to watch over me."
"Yes," he firmly states with a nod. "Yes I do. It's for more than your safety. It's for my conscious. I could never forgive myself if something happened to you, especially when you aren't at your best. I owe you my life for teaching me the ways of the Jedi and for being on my side when I needed someone to help me fight for my new path."
His words of gratitude emotional move Angela to the point that a couple of tears escape her light blue eyes. This causes Trent to worry that he had said something to upset her. "Angela? Why are you crying? Was it something I said? I'm...I'm sorry -"
Angela wipes the tears off of her face . "No, don't be sorry. You didn't upset me. In fact, you made me feel truly happy, and that's something that I haven't felt in a long time. Thank you."
"ALRIGHT EVERYONE! STOP SPREADING GOSSIP AND START WALKING TOWARDS THE QUINJET! WE'VE GOT A SCEPTER TO RECLAIM."
Tony voice booms through the whole hangar, causing everyone to look at the genius with different expressions of slight aggravation for making them wait for him.
What took you so long, Stark?" Steve asks impatiently.
"I had to pick out the right suit for the occasion." He knocks on his own armor, wearing everything except for the faceplate and helmet which are currently stored away in the suit. "Mark 43 seems like the suit for this outing."
Everyone by this time had gathered around Tony waiting for him to finish his spiel so that they could make their way to Sokovia. "Anyway, enough chit chat, let's get going." With several nods from the group, the team makes their way towards the Quinjet. The ramp automatically lowers itself, allowing the team to board the ship and take their seats.
Since Tony did own the jet, he decides to take the pilot's seat and punches in the coordinates for the outskirts of the Sokovia.
The hangar doors slide open as Tony pilots the Quinjet out of Avengers Tower and makes the ship climb up into the sky, heading east towards the little country of Sokovia.
PLEASE READ. Phew. Done. Yeah, I say that this chapter is a bit dull. But yo, next chapter is when I start to bring in a lot of Age of Ultron plot lines. I mean I have Sokovia and Loki's scepter and such, but I mean the next chapters are going to be novelized but with my two star wars ocs and some other marvel characters (wink wink). I think you will enjoy this story. Please leave a review. I want to know what you all think so far! Thank you!
~TheJediAvenger~
