Danger trickles in... actually, it crashes in!

Chapter 8

Clint blinked awake. His consciousness flooded back and forth like the nausea in his belly. He was starting on a decent concussion, and he knew it. The pain in his side came from some wound he couldn't afford to give any attention to. He still had work ahead. Through the dark, he looked up and saw, not one entryway, but three, that may still hold trapped Alfhiemr natives. He had to save them. Struggling up, Clint pulled his legs out from beneath the pile of fallen concrete and drywall. He crawled forward on his hands and knees, grabbed one of the mattresses, yanked himself upright, and hit the emergency button on the closest blast door. The fail safe jammed. Clint hit it again, staring inside the port hole window at the bodies strewn within. He stopped trying to open the door. No one inside could have survived. Three tons of concrete had fallen straight down in a single sheet. Nothing that was inside, remained. Clint moved on.

He felt lightheaded, and his stomach churned in the concussion-induced nausea. He fought against it and hit the next emergency button. The door sprang open instantly, and three elves fell in front of him. They were gasping, struggling to draw air as the fires in the room had consumed nearly all the oxygen. Clint leaned over and dragged them into his small room, keeping low to avoid the still blowing fireball over his head.

"Is anyone else alive in there?" He asked.

"Esheun me'ke." I do not know, one proclaimed, coughing to breathe.

Clint threw himself through the entry, keeping low to try and survive the overwhelming black smoke pouring through the far door. If anyone was alive beyond that room, he'd be shocked. He uncovered another five elves. They staggered in front of him toward the temporary safety the next room offered. Clint followed them, inspected the final blast door, and found he couldn't get through.

"Our escape's right there!" Clint said, pointing to the pile of rubble that had fallen on him. "Try and get through! Linnor is on the other side!"

"Where are you going?" One asked him, struggling to do as Clint instructed.

"I'm going to try to get in that last room." Clint replied. He searched around the floor with his hands, found the edge of a sheet and made short work tearing himself a strip of it. He wrapped it around his mouth and nose. Half a second later, he dove back in through the billowing smoke, and cut sharply left. Loki's words, from hours before, entered his mind now. If these barracks had the same designer as the rooms to the Gateway, then a secondary access door should exist between them the way Loki's room connected to Natasha's and his. He stayed low, feeling his way along the wall until he found the slight depression that attested to a door. He stuck his fingers against it, sliding them into the small open crack, and lined up beside it to yank the entry open. Something at his back cackled and exploded. He fell forward onto his face, and threw his hands over his head as the ceiling engulfed in a canopy of orange flames. He panted against the floor. The air around him burned going down, like breathing in a lava flow. He reached over with one hand, rolled onto his side, and hooked the bottom of his boots on the edge of the door. The boots kicked down, shoving the entry open the rest of the way.

"Hello?! Anyone alive in here?" he screamed inside, army-crawling forward.

"Help! Ferali!" dozens of voices cried.

Clint pushed himself up on his palms, and looked around the end of a row of bunks. The far entry to this room was still open. Hundreds of Elves gathered in that hall, hunkered down under the dust of the destruction seeking them out. Clint's just found the mother-load. "Follow me! The blast doors won't stay open. Keep low, these flames are going to choke us out! We have to clear the path. Hurry!" Clint told them. He turned in place, crawling back the way he came, with the lines of Alfheimr artisans following behind him. He stayed by the first door, keeping it open and directing their path all at once. The fire canopy had sucked away, back-building somewhere deep in the heart of the Elven barracks. They had to get out before it came for them again.

"Ackarae!" one of the Elves shouted.

Clint rubbed his eyes clean with the backs of his filthy hands and squinted forward at who called for him. To his shock, he saw Faraday, the brother of Linnor. His heart skipped a beat at seeing the dear friend. If Clint hadn't come this way, if he had turned back and given up, would the Elf have succumbed to the smoke and fire?

"Faraday!" Clint cried back. "Your brother is on the other side. Hurry, get out!"

"Not without you!" Faraday hurriedly shook his head. "And our king. We must find him! He stopped for us. He tried to free us out. He harkened to your warning, and came for us."

"He's out, I promise. I found him first. Please, go now!" Clint grabbed Faraday's arm and shoved the Elf along. Linnor would never forgive him if Clint managed to save the king, but failed to rescue his only living kin. Clint's look of desperation was enough to make Faraday understand. He followed the line of others, and left Clint tending the doorway. It seemed like forever and a day had passed before the final Elf was dragged past him in the arms of his friends and comrades. They didn't seem any better off than their friend, whose fractured ankles made his own mobility impossible. Clint came up behind them, threw the Elf's arm over his own shoulder, and allowed the other two to move on ahead of him. He glanced over at the face of the Alfheimr native.

"Is this everyone?" Clint asked him.

"I hardly know. It all befell before we had the chance to defend ourselves. Has Rinon come for us?" He answered.

Clint shook his head against the much taller Elf's chest. He must have been confused. Rinon hadn't been the regent in Alfheimr in over twelve Terran years. As far as Clint knew, he was still on Alfheimr. "No, Haladarrel came. He's been taken to safety. We're getting you out, too." Together he struggled through the last blast door, and welcomed the site of the opening between the barracks and the hall beyond. Linnor stood there, ferociously determined to escort his countrymen out single-handed. Across from him, Faraday managed the opposite side of the rubble pile, helping the people through the hole they'd cut through the rock. A wash of relief paled Linnor's face when Clint returned to them.

"Grenya! Oh, Ackarae, you found him!" Linnor exclaimed in excitement. His hands reached over, and with Faraday guiding the Elf through. Grenya passed to the safety on the other side of the hall, where more elves took over his weight. Clint nodded to Faraday, forcing the Elf to go next. Once Linnor's brother dropped to the other side, they both waited to help Clint.

"Is Hal ok?" Clint asked. Linnor lifted Barton's quiver and handed it back to him. Clint strapped it on as they sprinted away.

"Loki has found us a ship. He commands it now. Patience has not been his virtue." Linnor explained as they ran. He did not mention the state of Haladarrel.

"Loki?" Faraday questioned.

"Your surprise is only expounded by my own." Linnor replied.

They appeared at the end of the tunnel along with the tail end of the rescued Light Elves. Loki had come across one of the retrofitted Blackbirds, and it now hovered a few feet from the entrance, its cargo hold full of the bloodied and injured Elves. Clint tried not to focus on their faces as he cut a path through them to reach the cockpit. Linnor set to scanning the area one more time before he closed the rear doors.

"Planning to subject our rescue ship to all the inhabitants of Elven lands?" Loki asked as Clint opened the pass-through to the cockpit.

"What are you complaining about? I didn't see you diving under any flamethrowers." Clint replied. He closed the door behind himself, and moved forward to take a seat beside the Frost Giant. The minute he sank down into the seat, he felt as if his entire body weighed an extra two hundred pounds. Exhaustion hit him like a hammer. There was still so much left for them to do. He slowly unwrapped the cloth from his mouth and nose. He tossed it onto the floor, and shrugged the five-point harness over his bare arms.

"A few actually assumed I would assist in carrying them. I believe I will never feel a deeper insult." Loki said.

Clint hissed as the lower left buckle brushed against the rend in his side. He leaned over a little, probing the injury with a shaking hand. He groaned, this time loud enough that Loki stirred.

A steely glare analyzed Barton like an insect under lamp. "You are injured. Why have you said nothing?!"

"Never knew you cared. Last I remember, the first time we met, you didn't let me eat or drink for the seven hellish days you borrowed my body." Clint leaned over, grabbed the smoke-stained cloth again, and gently eased it against his bleeding side. He winced, trying to keep the pain in check.

"You were too busy murdering in my name. It was not my fault you did not bother to snack for your own mortal health." Loki replied, though with less of an edge in his voice. He glanced at the blood on Clint's hands, and attempted to gauge how much of it might have come from Barton himself and not those he just removed from the fires. "How bad is it?"

"Not as bad as it could be." Clint replied. After all, he could be missing half of his internal organs.

"Will it be killing you before we have the opportunity to escape our deaths?"

"Probably not."

"You should force one of those Elven space wasters to sit in your place and tend your wound."

"I'm fine." Loki might not be wrong, but Clint didn't want to tell him that.

"Good." Loki flicked a few switches on the overhead circuit boards, and sealed the cargo hold and main hatch. His hands flit expertly over the foreign machinery, gliding the Blackbird up to the waiting war raging over their heads. The sky was on fire with the craze of the surprise attack. Ships passed them on either side, attempting to get away but failing. The once blue and cream atmosphere had turned black in smoke and death. Buildings listed and burned. men and women, natives and workers fell from their skyscrapers to the endless pavement below. Some attempted to reach the waters and failed. Others clung to their fiery landings, screaming into the coming darkness for some kind of rescue from the absolute slaughter. Those faces Clint would never forget.

"Punch the A-grav."

Loki looked around the console. "The what?"

"Artificial gravity. Blue button. I don't need the Elves flying all over the cargo hold while we do this."

Loki flipped up the protective plastic cover, and thumbed the button down. The ship hummed with an internal engine beneath their feet, and he felt his body lighten just marginally. Artificial gravity engines tended to replicate an easier environment than the typical planetary ones. Clint leaned back against the seat, and pulled up the navigation systems. He was lucky the main layout of the ship hadn't altered much from the traditional Blackbird he was used to flying back on Earth. Four massive red ships highlighted the overview of the sky. Thousands of smaller lights, either blue or red, swirled around the airspace. The Blackbird lunged left as a ground-to-air missile nearly blew right through their lower vents.

Loki threw the ship into a spin, and drove her straight up. "You might want to mention that we are on the side of those on the ground. Perhaps then they may decide not to kill us!"

Clint brought up the ship-to-ship communication. Loki lunged again, dropping into a dive before the engines could stall out. They turned on their side, sling-shotting around a smoldering city tower, and came up the rear-end of a Kree warship.

"This is Blackbird 12 to Vanaheim Command. We are transporting refugees and the Alfheimr King. Do not shoot us!" Clint roared into the comms. He shot a glance at Loki. "Good enough?"

"Adequate." The Frost Giant replied. He guided the ship into another sideways crawl, then dove beneath the Kree ship they shadowed.

"We have to get out of the atmosphere. One good bomb drop, and they're going to light this world on fire." Clint said, shaking his head.

"I think you fail to understand that I already know that."

"Well, Mr. I'm-the-best-pilot-on-Asgard, do something about it!"

There was a slight change in Loki's expression. His pale face, slicked back raven hair, and green eyes unfocused for just a moment. He took in the entire expanse of the battlefield, the navigation system, and the ability of the heavy-ended ship all at once. It was the sort of cold, calculating stare that Clint had seen in the man only briefly in a shared past Clint preferred to forget forever. They'd spent time together in those days before the Avengers officially joined, when Clint was nothing more than a SHIELD agent with a happy outlook to stay a hired gun. Loki walked through the Tesseract, and changed his entire life. They spent every hour, of every day, together for nearly a week. Clint didn't sleep, didn't eat; he was a mindless slave, studying the man who had enlightened him to a life he couldn't have ever dreamed of. It was simple, blind, following that at the time seemed good enough for Clint. He knew that look Loki just gave the battlefield before him, because he's seen it once before.

"Don't." Clint whispered to him.

Loki blinked, the faraway look dispersing temporarily. He didn't spare Clint a second glance.

"We're getting out of this." Clint kept on. His steady assurance was the only think they had to hold on to. "Send me the controls."

Loki remembered that time just as well. When he sat on the floor at his hidden Tesseract base and conversed with Thanos. He came out of that meeting angry, shaken, and doubtful. He knew the power he toyed with was more powerful than he could control, and Clint could see that in him too. His eyes lifted that day, and saw Barton standing there, watching him with that all-knowing stare. Loki tried ignoring him. Clint pressed the issue. The endless loyalty of the archer moved him, despite the fact that Loki controlled him.

"We'll be just fine, sir. I'm here for you, whatever you require." Clint told him back then. Loki had never known such allegiance before, or after. Loki didn't hesitate. The full command of the piloting switched consoles, and Loki went back to navigation.

"I still hate you, and one day I think I'll throw you into a dying star." Barton said suddenly, interrupting Loki's introspection. Laufeyson shook his head, trying to dispel the old memories they unwillingly dredged up.

"And I would like nothing more than to see your body torn apart by despicable creatures. Tell me, which of us is assured of their desire coming to fruition?" He replied smoothly.

Clint didn't reply. He focused everything he had left on that mission they flew toward. Breach the atmosphere. Make it to open airspace. Dock with the Gateway. Get help. Those were his tasks. To accomplish them, he had to become something of a wizard.

Loki braced back and waited to see what Clint was going to do. He didn't often trust others with his personal livelihood, but Clint had a certain level of gallantry to him. Barton took the controls, and smoothly guided the ship down. Then, up they went into a spin before diving under a support strut on the side of the Kree warship's wing. An arc of blaster fire followed them, but Clint expertly guided them through the volley. They went into another spin, fell in behind another evacuation ship, and peeled left and up along their flank. The heavier engines and improved thrust of the Blackbird took her up faster than the smaller quinjet. The other ship fell into Clint's jet stream, drafting its way into the sky just before another line of Kree fighters tore at them sideways. The quinjet fell back in a smoldering mass, spun out of control, and exploded hundreds of feet beneath them.

"Get the targeting computers online, and send some of that spunk back at them." Clint said to his copilot. Loki's seat shifted to the side as he closed in to the weapon's console. His sleek fingers glided over the keys, and a globe map of the battlefield hovered in the air above him. He picked out twelve of the flashing red targets, and launched countermeasures.

"I do believe a child could operate this advance machine you pride yourself on." Loki said smugly.

"Hey, I don't listen to the opinion of the guy that didn't help kill all he Dark Elves, and instead decided to use the time to overthrow Odin. So hush your opinion!"

"This is not even remotely my fault. For one, my portals are much too small for a ship the size of the Kree." Loki replied, targeting another dozen fighters.

"You could have ordered the destruction of one Dark Elf ship while you were king of Asgard. But you know, that's just my opinion." Clint flicked the controls, dove beneath the fireball of one of Loki's connected torpedoes, and continued to blast upward out of the atmosphere.

"You try to be king, and then, perhaps, I will entertain your puny opinion of my ruling measures."

Clint laughed, despite himself. He never would have thought, in a thousand years, that his life would lead to this moment. Loki and he, with a cargofull of Elves, escaping a firestorm on Vanaheim. He pushed the ship to its very limits until, at last, the expansive dark sky of space took over the viewport. That wasn't all they faced. The Gateway hung before them, nose-forward to the coming enemy squadron. The four massive Kree ships setting fire to Vanaheim below, were merely the offspring of what lay before them. The flotilla was over a thousand battle cruisers strong. Their dark blue hides caught the light from Vanaheim's sun. They were a fearsome, terrible sight to behold. The Gateway managed to mobilize their own jump ships, but it was like watching a storm of mosquitoes attacking the Dubai Tower. The Kree cruisers stacked ten, twenty deep, and stretched for as far as Clint's eyes could see. Loki abandoned his weapons and pressed forward, his palms resting on the console.

"We . . . we've got to run." Clint whispered, shaking his head in shock.

"Vanaheim will be destroyed." Loki said. He didn't disagree, he merely stated the obvious.

"Don't they get it? If we aren't ready in six years, everyone in these systems, theirs included, is going to die."

Loki leaned back. His shoulders fell as he considered their lack of options. "Words of a race no one has met, but those heroes of Midgard. Why should the Kree believe such nonsense? I hardly know why I have subscribed to it."

Clint thought of all those people on the planet's surface he would never see again. He thought about Steve and Tony, Bruce and Natasha . . . all of them were on the Gateway. If that ship didn't turn now and jump into light speed, then they would never get the chance too. It would be torn apart in seconds by any one of the thousands of Kree warships. They entered into a no-win scenario, and there was nothing they could do to escape it. The Kree were ready before the heroes were, and they'd snuck right into their backyard unnoticed. The war was over before it could even start. The distant lingering fear of a Kree uprising was now a reality, and a long held one at that. The Gateway began to turn, flashing its broadside to the waiting canons of the Kree. If they ever wanted a better opportunity to destroy the very heart of the galaxy's defenders, this was it. From their safe distance out of the line of fire, Clint's heart stopped as he watched the Kree ships rev to life. Their canons glowed red.

The first shot fired over the bow of Clint's ship. He jumped in his harness, the shock of it overwhelming him. He'd been so fixated on the Gateway, he'd completely forgotten about his own position. He took the ship into a climb.

"What's on us?" Clint asked.

Loki fired up the navigation, and swiped the locators backward to take in the area behind them. For once, the Frost Giant was rendered completely speechless.

Clint whipped his head across the cockpit. "What is it? How many of them?"

"Stop a moment."

Clint didn't. He turned the ship, trying to level her out enough to let the Gateway come into view again. Loki shut the navigation console down, and flicked it back on. He waited as the image sprang to life, no different from the moments prior.

"Tell me something!" Clint shouted.

Before Loki had the chance to form his surprise into words, their viewscreen flickered with the image of an incoming transmission. Clint looked up into the holographic rendering of former king of Alfheimr, Rinon. His long white hair framed the sides of his pale face. A slim crown, made from woven willow stems and gold, rested over him like it was the most natural thing in the world. His face was tight, sharp, and full of angles from the slope of his nose to his prominent chin and brow. His ears were pulled back, chin jutted out in the sign of Elven authority.

"Ackarae Odin, fi rele kinmex Alfheimre. Odin's archer. Friend of the Alfheimr Kings. You may stand down. My people will conquer this threat ourselves." Rinon said. His silvery, lavender eyes held Clint's only briefly before the screen cut out.

Clint watched as a fleet of Alfheimr ships rushed around the small Blackbird. First hundreds, then thousands, all of them appearing from hyperspace, and revealing themselves from their invisible shielding the same way the Kree had. After all, it had been Elven technology first. The Elves were beautiful to see in action. They cut across space like a fish through water. Within seconds they covered the distance between the Blackbird and the Gateway incredibly fast. Once positioned between the heroes and Kree, the Elves closed in together, their wings extended like solar fans, and created an impenetrable force field wall around the heroes' ship.

"Xandarian technology." Loki whispered, watching it happened. He had never experienced so many surprises in his life, as he had in the last few hours in Clint's company.

Thousands more of Rinon's armada parted around the Blackbird as if water around a river stone. After the smallest of the crafts moved by, the larger frigates careened by. They were long, sleek creations of gold and silver. A sparkle of starlight, like a slate of diamonds, was painted along their sides and curled up and back into their command centers. The greatest of them hovered at Blackbird's side. Four silhouettes of dire wolves ran in a pack along the bottom of the ship, fading into the open jaws of a antlered tiger. Rinon's faralir. Its jaws opened wide over the bow, ready to swallow in whatever might dare to come against it. Clint had no doubt Rinon was somewhere inside the creation, standing at its helm with all the sovereignty of a warrior king.

"When did Alfheimr do this?" Clint asked no one in particular. He thought about the Elf he helped carry, how he asked if Rinon had arrived to save them. Did Alfheimr have this all along? Were they helping because they had already taken these steps themselves? Alfheimr was a race of peace and understanding. They never went to war unless they lent support to Asgard's peacekeeping of the Nine Realms. It was well understood they were a mighty race, but such muscles hadn't been stretched directly since the days that the Dark Elves were exiled to Svartalfhem, over seven thousand years prior. Only years ago, Clint remember Rinon and his people quaking at the idea that war might spring between their people and Asgard. Back then, their opinion was that Alfheimr would surely be destroyed. Seeing this, Clint couldn't understand why that thought would ever cross their mind. The thousands of ships cruising over and under Clint's own, didn't compare to the massive wave that appeared on the broadside of the Kree line. Rinon's Elves had distracted everyone with the direct forward advance while all this time the actual bulk of his armada sneaked into the left of the Kree's formation. All at once this second, mightier, force revealed themselves and cut through the Kree ships like sharks would decimate a school of fish. As large as the Alfheimr ships were, they retained an incredible speed that the Kree couldn't even dream of matching.

The tables were now turned. Facing a force that vastly outnumbered and out-manned their own, the Kree took the only option left to them. What ships could still function, jumped to lightspeed. Some were so desperate in their attempt to escape, they didn't wait for a proper targeting computer to set a course. The Kree began crashing into one another. Their formation split in half, the war-birds collided. Internal cargo, men, and munitions spilled into space. The Alfheimr crafts destroyed what little remained, until nothing but a sky of space trash endured.

The Gateway, with its Alfheimr escort and shield in place, turned from the destruction that should have been its own fate, and joined Clint's ship waiting a safe distance off. Clint didn't have to imagine what celebrations were going on between the friends he had aboard.

Holy Cow, who saw that one coming?

If you can't tell, I have such a soft spot for Elves. What will happen next? Where did Alfheimr get this power? What is Tony going to think about Clint running off? Stay tuned!

Please let me know what you think!