//------------------------------// // Chapter 152 – Annihilation // Story: Infinity Era // by JDPrime22 //------------------------------// 152 Arthros Sector 17A of the Negative Zone Hawkeye led the team of four with his bow at the ready, arrow jutted forth and scanning their environment like a drone. Like a mindless, emotionless, inhumane drone. His expression told a similar tale. Simply a shroud of darkened nothingness on his face. It was hidden from the others, especially as they entered the desolate city covered in shadows. The city—whatever they could call a city—gave off a haunting aura of terror and endlessness that none of the Avengers could fathom. Jutted towers with pointed tips scraped the skylines, alien structures and decimated streets filled the lower-levels alongside the shadows. A treacherous white fog began to cover the star-dotted skies and fill the outer skirts of the city, blocking where they had entered. None of them saw it. They kept close together, Clint and Tempest leading with Elektra next in line and Natasha—startlingly enough—hanging further behind. Tempest knew only a select number of offensive spells. The kind of the more magical variety were something she had dabbled in over the past five years but never truly mastered. Despite that, she knew that even her magic wasn’t strong enough to sense the Infinity Stone. Even with a mended horn, Tempest knew that. Still, she tried. She strode right behind Clint with her curved horn aglow, her breathing soft and quiet as she listened in for every possibly pulse, for every possibility that her magic could have sensed the energy of the Soul Stone. She didn’t even know what kind of energy spike to look for. But even anything, especially in the wasteland they were in, could bring up something. It was quite literally impossible to see without the guide of Tempest’s horn leading them into nothing but empty, desolate streets. Clint tried for his flashlight attached to his wrist’s gauntlet, but it soon fizzled out and died with an audible pop. The same went with Elektra’s flashlight, the second it was turned on and dying after several seconds of flickering on and off. Natasha didn’t even try hers, knowing a similar fate was bound to befall it. Instead, she tried to focus as to why their flashlights didn’t work. It could have possibly been some kind of consistent EMP, or maybe an electric field in the atmosphere that disabled any and all electronic equipment. That couldn’t be right, as Natasha stared down to her GPS and saw it fully functional. Her mind kept shifting back to maybe it being something in the air. Just something she couldn’t explain. Maybe it was the fog. Curious at that, Natasha tilted her head skywards to see those clouds begin to cover the night sky. The only form of light came from the black hole over their heads. The burning light of the event horizon and photon sphere giving very minimal warmth or sight to the darkened world they walked upon. When even light could not escape the reach of the black hole, there could be no light to guide them. All they had was Tempest’s horn, and it offered very little other than a few yards of clear sight. Growing rather impatient and tired, Clint lowered his bow and loaded arrow down to his side. His hardened stare fell on the unicorn, Barton muttering, “Where are we going, Tempest?” She didn’t even turn to him. Clint’s lip flinched a sneer at that. “I’m trying to find the Soul Stone,” Tempest replied, a hint of aggravation in her tone. “It’s been hours.” “I’m sorry, but do you have a magic horn? No, you don’t. This isn’t particularly easy, so if you could please keep it quiet so I can at least try to find something.” “Yeah, well it looks like you’re leading us nowhere, Tempest!” he suddenly barked. It practically came out of nowhere, nearly his entire team turning to him on that outburst. Not Tempest, though. Just as quickly, Clint coughed and hunched forward, hand placing his arrow back in his quiver to cover his mouth. Once the coughing had ceased, Clint steadied himself with a subtle, heavy breathing. His burning eyes arose and glared at Tempest’s back. “Or is it ‘Fizzlepop’?” Tempest stopped. She spun around and glared at Clint with a fiery ferocity unseen by any of the Avengers beforehand. As her breath hardened, Tempest lowered herself so her expression could darken from the shadows that the light of her horn created. “Do not call me that,” she growled slowly. Clint was unphased, rising back up to full height to glare her down. “Why not? It’s your real name, ain’t it? At least, that’s what that… Skeletor-lady said.” “You don’t get to call me that!” Tempest suddenly screamed, hoof jammed in Clint’s direction. She coughed almost as quickly, that same hoof shielding her mouth before turning to the rest of her team. “None of you get to call me that!” Her eyes burned and tears started to well up, but not from the argument… from the pain in her lungs and the air she swallowed. Their continued argument spanned into several minutes. At least, that was what it felt like. Elektra and Natasha stopped when Clint and Tempest did and spent the next moments shouting at one another. Natasha swayed from side to side, flinching at every sound she thought she heard in the shadows and darting her eyes in those directions. She slowly backed away from nothing, keeping her head on a slow swivel as the towers and walls of the darkness began to cloud tighter and tighter around her. Elektra stumbled forth and leaned against the nearest building wall she could. She noted the wall to be shockingly cold, yet somehow warmer than the chilling fog washing through their immediate area. Her palm graced the side of the building as Elektra noted the slick dampness. She slowly reared her palm back from it, grimacing at the sight of the black slime and gunk connected to her palm and dripping to the black canvas that was the earth. Has it really been hours? Elektra thought. She wrapped her arms around herself as the fog filled the street and surrounded them in that haunting whiteness. She breathed out a shaking exhale and coughed as her inhale was an absorption of the mist. Nothing else could hold her, could give her warmth. Her mind kept falling back to being in Matthew’s arms, his warming embrace being exactly what she needed at the moment. Yet he was not there to hold her. Her eyes shifted over to her team. Her… team. Are they really your team? You saw the way they stared at you before, but you didn’t want to face it then. Look at them. Look at them now. Clint and Tempest babbled on in their shouting match, their words becoming a slur of incomprehensible, demonic wails. Natasha lingered in the background, her body quivering as the fog swarmed around her legs and covered her shoulders. They fought. They argued. They were lost and confused and utterly terrified of where they were or where they were supposedly going. A fractured heart and a broken spirit of the Avengers molded into the perfect recipe for disaster. You think they have what it takes to finish this mission? You were lucky before with the Soul Stone, but now… they’ll only hold you back. They won’t cover ground in this state. You can’t trust them… just as much as they don’t trust you. Elektra’s arms tightened around her body, a shivering exhale leaving her lips and spewing that frozen breath into the fog. Her pupils were wide, face low and veiled in shadow, and veins slowly overcoming the whites of her eyes. She shivered and quaked as the sounds around her numbed and her stare shifted into a terrifying glare. One that only worsened as the fog continuously filled her lungs and Clint and Tempest raged at each other. Look at them and convince yourself you’re lying. Elektra glared to the expression filling Clint Barton, the face of fury overcoming that of rational being and thought. Veins filled his neck and a burning red covered his skin. Tempest was no better, the unicorn bending low as her expression took form into something even more horrific than Elektra could possibly explain. You can’t explain. All there is to know is that they do not trust you. They know what you are. They know what you did in service to the Hand. They will never trust you and you need to do what is necessary. Before it’s too late. “No…” Elektra whispered. Before they kill you. “No, no, no, no, no…” she told herself again and again, those palms rising up and clutching her skull as she slowly paced further and further away from her team. She wanted to convince herself that it was all but her head trying to mess with her again, like it had when she was still the Black Sky. That torment, that veil of darkness was something she never wanted to face again. But that was another voice telling her what to do. That was someone else’s hands on the steering wheel that caused her to become that demon. What she heard, what she was hearing… was herself. Just herself. And she wasn’t alone. Natasha Romanoff usually heard voices. Some welcome than others, but all of them familiar. Somehow, someway, hearing her own voice speak to her felt even more off-putting than when she heard the voices of her sisters from a lifetime she left behind. Her voice felt more like a stranger than it usually had, and Natasha flinched because of it. You know what he’s become. Because it wasn’t her thoughts controlling the words she heard. You know what he’s done. Don’t try and deny it. You nearly gave up your life for him? A murderer? “How am I any better?” Natasha whispered to nothing, no one. But herself. You never had a choice. He did. And she… the unicorn who waged war against Equestria. Against your friends. The Black Sky. Another murderer. They’re all murderers by choice. They’re not worth your life. They’re nothing more than reminders of the demons in your past. Natasha gulped, sweat building and falling down her face despite the sub-zero temperatures of the fog clouding her. She mumbled, “You’re lying.” Look. She did. And to her newfound horror, she saw as Tempest’s face took a stark and horrifying shift within a blink of her eye. Her expression centered on Clint morphed into that of a demonic snarl, the massive, glossy red eyes resembling that of an insect and turning to her. Her jawline, filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth, transformed into a terrifying grin. It, whatever the demon was, hissed and snarled at her. Natasha’s chest expanded and fell rapidly, eyes widened and rising to be met with a sight that froze her heart. Clint slowly turned to face her, yet his movements were awkward. Twitching, flexing in unusual and inhuman ways. His face met Natasha’s, met her eyes, and resembled that of Tempest Shadow’s. His pale skin infected by a sickening black, eyes large and glossy and red, and teeth dripping venom and malice as his lips curved into a grin. A horrific, otherworldly grin that couldn’t possibly be considered human. Especially the snarl that left his throat. Not human. Not Clint. She blinked and shook her head, but it was still there. The two of them still stared at her with dreadful intent like that of a hungering beast. An emotionless insect. Natasha felt her rigid movements act on their own accord, her instinct’s taking over and bringing one of her feet back. A step away. Another step. Maybe they wouldn’t see her if she concealed herself. Maybe they would lose interest and she could find what she came into the city for. The entire time she could only look into the shimmering eyes of the demons glaring at her with every step she took. Until she fell away into the darkness. Tempest’s voice failed her when she noticed a lack of a certain Avenger behind Clint. She leaned over, brow furrowed and heavy when she asked, “Natasha…?” Her voice was a whisper, something Clint almost didn’t catch. Yet his anger seemed to fade away when he heard that name leave the unicorn’s breath, the questioning of her name bringing Clint’s attention back. And to his horror, there was nothing there. She was gone. “Nat…” Clint called quietly. Knowing nothing would respond, he took the necessary steps closer to where he last saw her and shouted, “Nat! Natasha! Natasha, where are you?!” Tempest’s nearly took a step forward to join Clint, but the subtle sound of buzzing in the distance behind her prompted her attention backwards. She spun her neck nearly fully around, seeing nothing and no one in the shadows beyond her horn’s glow. There it was again, the subtle buzzing growing louder. She took a step towards it, clearing a section of shadow with her horn’s light. The moment she did so, the sound stopped, and only Clint’s cries could be heard in the distance. Determined to not let the sound escape her, Tempest let her horn die to allow the shadows to consume her. The sound instantly returned, but grew fainter and fainter the longer she stood in place. It was more than enough of a guide, prompting Tempest into the darkness to follow the clue and discover what it offered. Even anything could bring up something. No light. No path. Just the sound and Tempest’s fading hoofsteps as she followed it into the dark. Clint ran forward as much as he could before the shadows were too much. He could barely see. “Natasha!” he screamed, hearing his voice echo and echo until it faded away. Much like the light of Tempest’s horn faded away. Clint’s world was instantly doused in black, his pupils widening to gain a clearer sense of his surroundings. His heart froze, his breath tightening when he spun around and saw no one there. Tempest was gone. “He-hey!” Clint shouted, running over to nowhere in hopes of catching Tempest. A wall of black stopped him. “Tempest? Tempest?! We… we can’t split up!” But it was already too late. Clint turned madly to where he last saw Elektra. She was gone, too. They all were. The settling silence was almost unbearable. It was torture. The light of the stars and of the black hole above was all he could use to guide him from that point forward, but there was nowhere to turn. Every direction, every turn, every spin that Clint took only pointed him to total darkness. His breathing was ragged and pained, blood-colored veins clouding the rational whites of his eyes. It was so quiet he could hear his own veins pumping blood throughout his body. Torture. Whipping out a flare-tipped arrow, Clint pulled back and fired away straight ahead into the blackness. The piercing white of the burning flare on his arrow lit up the shadows as the arrow flew down the seemingly-endless street ahead of him. It painted a horrifying picture of unnatural alien structures and winding pathways that no human could have designed. The flare died and the darkness returned. The silence was beginning to settle once again and Clint could not stand it. He reared back into his quiver and pulled free an explosive tip arrow, loading it in and spinning madly around. He thought he heard something. A whisper. A hiss. A cry. It slashed across the air and disappeared just as quickly. With sweat on his brow and fire clouding his eyes, Clint kept the arrow pointed ahead of him, slowly gazing to the black hole, to the stars, to the sky, and to the buildings. They all glared down at him, the whistling of the wind and fog sounding off and being the only sound for miles. Clint shivered as he finally released the arrow. It exploded against the side of the nearest building he could find, the fires shooting outwards and filling the night with burning cinders. He spun around after he heard another scream in the wind, pulling free a second explosive tip and firing it at a different building high above him. Those same fires filled the night and faded just as well, the smoke against the building lingering several seconds longer. Clint wanted to pull another arrow out. He wanted to shoot at whatever tried to zero in on him and kill it and murder it and slice it up until its blood coated his palms and bathed the ground he stood on and… Barton closed his eyes. He took in several slow, calming breaths. For several seconds, until a near-minute had reached him, and then he opened his eyes again. He could see very little, but the light of the black hole offered something. It offered enough. He gazed down and saw how tight he was gripping his bow. So tight that his hand and his glove were shivering. So tight that he felt his eyes watering up and the breath in his lungs actually start to hurt him. He exhaled. He loosened his grip. His shoulders slumped and his mind started to gradually ease itself. For several seconds, it felt natural. It felt so right. Until he felt like himself again. That’s when the scream reached him with such resounding force that it knocked him to the earth. Clint thought he lost his bow in the scuffle. He couldn’t feel it anymore as the body crashed on top of him and slashed, cut, and bit at him with demonic-like force and action. It sounded anything other than human or any animal he knew. It acted completely different from anything that seemed natural. So Clint felt no remorse when he kicked it off, unsheathed his katana, and swung madly into the glowing, insect eyes of the demon that charged him once more. A sickening sound was heard, and then only Clint’s heavy breathing. He waited until only silence remained, until his eyes could fully adjust to the darkness and he could see what had become of his assailant. Lying before him, he gazed onto each half of the demon that had attacked him. Upon further investigation, Clint noted its eyes, the glossy red resembling that of an insect. Even the body was reminiscent of that, the wings upon its back and pincers lying in the growing pool of green liquid. An insect. A large, alien insect. That was all it was. Clint slowly turned to his katana’s edge, breath tightening when he saw the blade drip with that same green substance. His breath tightened even further when he heard it. That dreaded sound. The buzzing. It was getting louder, joining the echoing shrills and cries of the insects as they began to zero in on his location. More on the way. Clint darted his head back to the approaching sounds, eyes wide and wild and on the highest alert he could possibly be. With katana in hand, he picked up his bow and ran straight into the darkness. Not knowing where he was going, not knowing what he was doing, but just that. Just running. No matter how far or how fast he ran, the screams of annihilation followed.