Revamped!
Chapter 104: All Together Part Five
Manhattan - 14:19 PM
As Xavier enters the freeway, he glances at Emily who decides that after she survived an attack from Hel and that her fiancé just vanished, she puts on her sunglasses. Only Emily Stark could make a crisis as couture for herself. A part of Xavier wishes she would put that technique on him so he would have a safety blanket.
"What's with the shades?" Xavier asks.
"I look intimidating," Emily replies. "I might not be able to fling shields like frisbees but I still need to look scary."
Xavier rolls his eyes. "Your jokes suck and if you think your sunglasses are scary, then that's sad."
"You don't understand."
Xavier groans in annoyance because he didn't want to deal with this now and he got the joke. As he picks up speed and changes lanes, Emily pulls out her phone and opens a map of the city that she turns into a hologram. A moving blue dot represents them and she sends a suit to their location to follow them just in case the worst were to happen which, knowing their luck, it will. She then zooms out to show the whole planet. She spins the Earth, tracing it for any active form of gamma which doesn't show up.
"I'll need a whole lot of epinephrine for this crap." She glances at Xavier. "What's the plan?"
"Hope we don't die," Xavier responds.
"Hope isn't a strategy."
"It kind of is because all I got for a plan is that we reassemble and then I'll think of something clever."
Emily puts her phone down on the dashboard and puts a comforting hand on his arm. "Don't get too riled. It's bad for your heart. You'll feel better letting it all out."
"Thanks for the counselling, Not-That-Kind-of-Doctor Stark, but I feel great keeping it all in the back of my mind."
"Fine. I'll do the talking as per usual and you could listen if you want, Not-a-Patient Rogers. Sigyn's coming after us and she's scarily magical but despite that, we have the power to save lives and not all dangers are ones we can see right away. As friends, the truth can sometimes be less important than protection, especially since you're protecting yourself. If you want to lead us successfully, use your love for her to do so."
Xavier avoids Emily's eyes. "What happened before Daniel disappeared?"
Emily lightly shrugs, knowing that Xavier is just avoiding the topic of Sigyn. "We were sampling wedding cakes, got into a mild fight, and time froze. It literally froze except for myself and Daniel. And then, these medieval Day of the Dead skeletons came and fought us. When they vanished, so did Daniel and everything started moving again."
Xavier suddenly stares at her stunned with the word skeletons echoing in his head. This shocking news gives him the feeling that everything around him is suddenly blurred. He sees Emily talking which turns into screaming and panicking as she tries to grab the wheel. Then, there's a muffled sound of something blowing up and he's flying through the air, still in the car. The world's still spinning on its axis but he can't feel it anymore. It's like everything just … stops.
-o-
"I'm picking up another dramatic increase in seismic activity," Merida says.
Everyone else on-board prepares their weapons as Merida lands. She opens the landing dock as she sends their new coordinates to Xavier and Emily. Merida jumps out of her seat, grabbing her bow as she runs out. She stands in the middle of Angela and Iqadi with James and Apollo on the outside.
The sudden earthquake just calmed down all around them and they stand on the quiet ground. Their senses feel heightened as they look around them with their weapons ready to fire.
"Nothing else is moving," Iqadi tells them.
Just above their heads, a portal forms in the sky and starts raining out the same armoured skeletons that attacked Daniel and Emily. The team disperses as the skeletons land on the ground, looking for something moving to battle.
"What the hell?!" James exclaims as he starts firing his bioelectricity blasts at them.
"Are these alive or not?!" Angela questions as she starts kicking them. The fact that they're skeletons throw her off.
Apollo watches as his friends start battling like warriors with all their strength. He looks at the endless flood of them and the grip he had on his axe loosens for a second. He stands frozen, just like everything else in his surroundings. The skeletons blur into one and his friends are the ones that stand out in the ongoing fight. He isn't having a flashback but it strongly feels like he is.
"Why does this all look familiar?" Apollo softly asks himself.
-o-
Just Moments Ago - Manhattan
Emily waves her hands in front of Xavier's face and snaps her fingers as she yells his name. It's like he's gone catatonic, like how it all was before the skeletons showed up. Emily takes hold of the wheel and looks ahead only to see a herd of skeletons at the end of their path. They throw their weapons, denting the car and breaking the windows. Emily is thankful that she's wearing her sunglasses since they shield her eyes from the glass shards. One of the skeletons throws its spear towards them. Emily shrieks as it jams into the wheel, causing the car to turn and careen right off the freeway. Emily tries to turn it back but it's already crashed through the barrier and they're falling.
Emily screams as the car turns onto its side mid-air and her arms pinwheel at her sides. She unbuckles her seatbelt and falls on top of Xavier who's still dazed. Emily unlocks the door and it breaks off with the spear that was in the steering wheel, sending them out with it so they will separate from the car and not be squished by it. She holds the back of her neck so that it won't slam against the ground when they hit it.
The only thing on Emily's mind is a list of the bones in the human body which is also known as every bone she'll break.
Then, Emily feels something grab her arms from behind. At first thought, she thinks it's a skeleton but when she turns around, she sees that it's the suit she called. Before she could react, it takes her into the suit as if it was eating her whole. The moment her suit turns on, she sees Xavier hit the ground but lucky for him, he had the car door to save him from slamming right on the pavement in a loud bang. However, that doesn't even wake him up. It knocks him right out.
There are always three possible outcomes in life: ideal, workable, and horrible. She saved both of their lives just now and she would call herself a hero, which is ideal. She has a suit which is workable. Emily turns to look at Xavier who is unconscious and bleeding on his forehead which is horrible.
"Vitals, now!" Emily orders harshly.
-o-
Location Unknown, Time Unknown
The Hulk reappears with a handful of skeletons but the moment it lands on the ground, they all dissolve into green dust in his hands and fly away in the wind. The Hulk takes a breath and looks ahead to see that he's no longer in the city but in a canyon-like environment. The breeze brushes past his face as it shrinks back to Daniel. Daniel shakes his head from a sudden dizziness and regains his balance. He starts shivering due to the intense breeze and tries to see where he is although he can't see since he has no clue where his glasses are.
"Oh, god…" Daniel mutters crouching over. "I hope this works."
He did it once in the Academy so it should work.
He looks up again and his eyes are green instead of brown. He gave himself his Hulk's eyes to see properly and he gets a good look at his location, turning around to try and get a good look at everything which, coincidentally, is nothing.
He groans. "Great. I'm never going to catch a cab here."
Then, Daniel suddenly remembers being in New York. He was sampling wedding cakes and then all the skeletons came. Daniel staggers back, leaning on a rock as he tries to hold back the rest of his Hulk from coming out as he panics about Emily.
"Emily!" He yells so loud it's almost like his Hulk's roar.
There's nothing and Daniel's breathing quickens as he presses his hands to his forehead, holding his Hulk inside of him as his body shakes. He just needs to know that she's okay and that he didn't mean to disappear on her. That was the truest form of kindness, the most basic sort of love: to be worried about the one who was worrying about you.
Daniel perks up when he hears a voice. He looks and, with his eyes back to brown, he just sees blurriness. No figures make their way into his line of sight and maybe it was a desert mirage playing with his mind but the voice comes again and he doesn't pick up what it says. His gut wants to believe that it's Emily but the more audible it becomes, his gut sinks further deep inside of him in fear as he scurries to hide behind the rock at whoever is out there.
"Come out, monster!" He hears being yelled as loud as possible. "I'm making it your time! Come and eat the realm which you crave!"
He's scared, mentally debating with himself on whether or not he should unleash his Hulk. Right now, it's a fight or flight mentality where he's wondering who he'll fight or where he would fly to. Both options seem like dead ends to him.
[In case any of you care or are interested, I have a Doctor Who one-shot titled Rory's Seat now published].
