Noelle - Day 136 (The Return of the Mighty Steve)

HELLO.
We are currently deep in the...um...depths of the second-to-last chapter of my first finished book, The Warriors.  :) BUT FIRST.  There is something more important!

Steve has returned!  And this time he has a lame Halloween costume.  :P

And of course, he'll return next week with another adorable comic, just like always.

Now, for the real business at hand...

Random Marvel-based Story (Parts 88, 89, & 90)

Just get to Avenger’s Tower.  You can save them.  You can.  Go.  Just get to Avenger’s Tower.

That’s all that was fueling Jess’s fatigued thoughts as she soared over the city.  Without the energy to pump her wings, she glided over the skyscrapers, only flapping occasionally to lift herself over the edge of a building.

Open up.  Now’s the one chance you’ll have.  Do it.

Jess followed her instincts and sank into the connection that she hadn’t been allowed to use in almost two years.  Instantly, she was hammered with thousands of overlapping signals, from a man who was dancing two blocks away to where Hawkeye and Iron Fist pounded against the wall in Avengers Tower.  She zeroed in on that and quickly found the closest window.

Fatigue forgotten for half-a-moment, she closed her eyes, knowing that she would sense anything close to her except -

-WHAM.

And there’s Nova.  Jess frowned and tucked her wings, fighting the hurtling wind as she dove into the thoroughfare below.  It felt like her armour had protected her from Nova’s energy blast, but she was she that it would hurt in the morning.  A lot.  If she had gained control over this wild beast inside of her by then.

Blast him out of the sky.  Take him down.  He’s in your way.

No.  He’s my friend.  It’ll only slow me down.

He’s slowing you down now.

No.  I trust him.

He doesn't trust you, now does he?  You attacked them.  You put a gun to head.  He’ll just as soon blast you out of the sky.

Shut up.

Jess winced as the headache in the front of her head built up even more, sneaking its tendrils around her brain and squeezing it like an anaconda squishes one of those wild pigs on the National Geographic channel.  She ignored the whispering temptation and swung around a corner, feeling her wings tear a little from the pressure and the burns from Nova.  Jess shuddered and sent some stone from her arm to her right wing’s injury.

“Guys...guys, she’s, Jess is the Stone Dragon!”

“I don’t have a sister.”

“Get out of my apartment!”

The confused voices in Jess’s mind grew to a maximum, pushing around for control till it was hard to tell what was imagined, what was remembered, and what was an echo, traveling to her through the walls and floors of the city.  She tucked her wings again, trying to focus, and pinpointed the window at Avenger’s Tower.  3...2...1....

Oh man this is going to hurt.

*******

Jess slammed into the window, feeling the glass shudder then splinter into a million shards, ripping hungrily at her arms and destroy her suit’s armor.  Yech.

She crashed through, her wings vanishing, and skidded across the floor.  “CLARA?!”  Iron Man’s confused voice slipped in through the whisperings of the city.  Jess shut down the connection with the stone and stood up dazedly.  “What happened to you?!”

Jess swayed on the spot, confused, and glanced at her reflection in the cracked mirror next to her.  Blood dripped down her arms.  Where it wasn’t bleeding, her skin was grey as rock.  Whenever she moved a miniscule shard of glass dug deeper into her skin.  She did indeed have fangs, grey ones where her two canines should have been.  The ones that had been knocked out after the Art Gallery Incident.  Her face was bruised and bleeding.  One sleeve of her suit was in ribbons.  She ripped it off, leaving her left arm close to bare.

“Family happened,” She whispered, sagging against Captain America.  Cap and Tony blinked, then nodded.  “Oh right, I have stuff to do here.  How much time is left on the clock, Hawkeye?”

Nobody asked how Jess expected Hawkeye, trapped in the room next to them with no way out, was supposed to respond, but Jess’s eyes widened frantically a few second later.  “6 minutes, 52 seconds.”

Suddenly, Nova flew in, skittering across the hall on the shattered glass.  “Stop right there, Avengers, you don’t know what you’re dealing with.  That girl is very danger-”

Iron Man sighed melodramatically and stepped out of his armor to check Jess’s wounds.  “Actually, Buckethead, we know what we’re dealing with better than any of you Web Warriors.  Jess, where did you leave them?”

“With Shadow, at the docks,” Jess said, pulling herself up with great difficulty.  “Where is everybody?  Actually, you know what, don’t answer that question.”

“Europe, on a mission,” Tony supplied, disregarding Jess and stepping back into his armor.  He blasted at the thick wall, made specifically for training wear-and-tear.  “It’s useless, I can’t get through,” He said grumpily, ignoring Nova’s splutters.  “You know, when I designed this training hall I didn’t mean for it to be used as a jail!”

Jess smiled turned away from Iron Man, leaning weakly against the wall.  A tear slid down her cheek, mixing with the red droplets already coating her skin.  “Nova, I know you don’t trust me anymore.  I know that you would much rather blast me out of the sky then trust me at this point.  But Hawkeye and Iron Fist and - and my brother are trapped in that room and if we don’t stop them, our friends go boom!”

“And I should trust you why?!  YOU LIED TO US!!!”

Jess burst into tears and sank once more to the floor.  “Dammit, Sam, we don’t have time for this!”

“Oh like there will ever be a better time for this.  You’re just going to disappear and leave us to clean up your mess!”  Nova screamed, towering over her.  Cap started to stop him, but Iron Man pulled him back while Nova howled, “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!”

In an instant, Jess had Nova by the neck.  “As if I’m not aware of that at this point,” She snarled, her fangs dripping in what was hopefully not blood.  “As if I haven’t had that pounded into my head for months.  As if I’m not reminded of that every day when I see my little brother in a wheelchair!!!”

Nova fought against her, pulling desperately at her clawed hand.  “The Jess I was friends with would tell us...about...her brother.  I didn’t even...know you had...family!! You never...told us....anything!!!!”

Jess slammed him into the ground, only to feel Tony Stark pulling her away, away from Nova.  “And you think that’s my fault?!  Congrats.  You just became another person I’ll have to leave behind.”

She twisted away from Iron Man wordlessly and forgot her control.  Forgot her protocols.  Let it all fall away.  Before anybody could stop her, the five foot wall, the wall to the training hall she hadn’t been allowed to use because of all the rules, all the red tape, was gouged open, torn away in a blink of an eye.  Her heart was racing, her eyes black with anger, her wings flung out from behind her.  She felt her fingers tearing away at the stone ropes, the bombs were in her hands, Iron Fist was out in the hall, Hawkeye was safe, Mozart was asleep in his arms, the tick tick tick was getting louder and louder in her ears, the room was spinning round and round.  The wind whipped at her face, ripping at everything and anything it could reach, ripping the tower away from her.

And then she was falling...falling...falling into the water, the freezing liquid was surrounding her, and all she could hear was that tick tick tick ....

And the bombs exploded.

*******

“THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!”  Echoed in his ears as he stood up.  His bruises were darkening on his arms, but he ignored that.

Nova stood, whirling around like a carousel going too fast and felt somebody, somebody stronger than him pull him away, away from Jess.  Her arms were flung away from her body so that every drop of blood was sharp in the yellow artificial light.  Her wings materialized out of nowhere, black and in shreds.  He felt himself wince when he realized that the left wing had a huge scorch mark on it.  Like it had been hit by a Nova-beam.

The wall, a wall so thick even Iron Man couldn’t have blasted his way through it, half-curled half-blasted open at Jess’s terrible, screaming command and she dove through it, tearing at the ropes that held Hawkeye, Iron Fist, and a little sandy-haired boy in place.  A little boy that had the same curved jaw as Jess, the same blue-grey eyes.  The same curly hair.  Her little brother.  The one that the Web Warriors weren’t even allowed to know about.

Suddenly, the room stopped spinning and he realized that Jess had ripped open the other wall of the room, letting in the cold New York air.  A car horn blasted into his eardrums from the street below, and before his mind could catch up, Nova was out in the sky, plummeting after Jess as she tore through the air like an arrow.

“NOOO!!!”  His lips were screaming, his heart was racing, but nothing he could do could stop Jess from plunging face-first into the water below.

The world stopped.  Nothing moved.  The cars stopped driving, the seagulls stopped blaring their calls over the bay, the air stood dead still.

And then the bombs exploded.



....and this is me stopping you in the middle of the action...again. I'm so evil. See you tomorrow for the final moments of ... see I'm not even going to end that sentence I'm so evil.