Intertwine

107 - The Hang Of It

Aditi saw at the same time I did, and the massive dog bounded forward. It looked like the same one that had attacked Clint and I, only this one she had tamed somehow.

"All thanks to Fiona!" She shouted as way of explanation as she charged forwards. 

Aditi and Peter may have led the way, but the avalanche of screams from my family was enough that I knew Roara would never be alone as long as she was with us. We were a team. 

I'd lost Steve in the crowd as we tried to get to Simon, his form moving from place to place as he teleported. A game of cat and mouse. 

"Alina!" I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Tony. 

"Tony-"

"No time to talk, use this." He placed a small circle of red metal into my hands. "It'll autopilot for you."

"Tony I can't-"

"If you get stuck I'll pilot it for you." He pulled the circle out of my hands and slammed it against my chest. He gave me a small salute as my helmet closed back up. "Don't fuck up."

My feet lifted from the floor. "NAARGGH!" I felt unsteady, as though I was walking on jello, trying to get to grips with how this worked. Calculations were flashing before my eyes at the speed of light, and I had a 360 projection of what was around me. c

"FRIDAY!" I yelled. "MERGE INTERFACE WITH CASSY!" 

"Merging interface." Came the jovial reply from Friday. 

"Wow, wow, wow..." I looked down. I was above everyone, just hovering in the crowd. Beside me I saw Rhodey and Tony.

"Not bad huh?" Rhodey asked.

"She'll get the hang of it." Tony replied for me. "But we've got trouble." He turned around and flew behind us. I turned to see what he was looking at. 

A large shape had appeared in the sky, the edges fading out into reality. I had to blink several times to convince myself that what I was looking at was indeed reality. I could see a plain, what looked like light yellow grass and a brown moon in the sky, framed within the hovering shape like a painting in a gallery. But what was inside the image was even more alarming. Massive dark shapes were bounding towards us, flashing in and out of focus. One moment they were wolves, the next they looked a bit like lions with horny, the next they were like dragons. And they were coming towards us. They were coming for us. 

Tony looked at me. "Alina-"

"I'm on it." My suit surged forwards with ease, gliding through the air like there was no resistance at all. Just doing the rough calculations in my head, Tony had made a practically faultless machine here. I felt almost sad about taking so many apart to build mine, but none of his would have fit me seeing as I was taller than him by a couple of inches. It steered so smoothly, so beautifully. I don't know how the suit knew to do it but before I realised what was happening I was twisting in mid-air, turning in a cork-screw motion, trails of red behind me. 

My arms moved out and a line of white left my fingertips, enhanced by the modifications I'd made to the suit. It hit one of the creatures between the eyes, making it rear back for a moment its body transforming into something like a horse, before becoming a mass of darkness again. The portal closed behind them. They were in with us now. 

Aditi turned her wolf to face the creatures, Peter with his arms tightly around her middle sat behind her. They seemed to move with one mind, Aditi and her wolf. As though they were one being. The wolf leapt, and as it did so Peter threw himself upwards, somersaulting through the air, his webs latching onto a part of the wall. The wolf landed on one of the creatures and to my surprise, didn't pass straight through it as I had expected. The creatures were nothing but black smoke, almost my power, but underneath the claws of the wolf they were solid. 

It was what Aditi did next that left me astonished. She opened her arms wide and her entire body seemed to crackle with purple electricity. It was like when she had killed Cog in the forest. Purple spurts of light connected between her chest and the dark creatures around her as she threw her head back, her eyes glassy, irises flashing purple. The creatures seemed to freeze in place, some in mid-air.

"Holy shit..." I heard Rhodey mutter through the intercom. 

"ALINA!" Peter shouted at me from the wall. "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?"

I spun my arms around, building up energy.

"She can't hold it for long!" Peter replied, jumping from wall to wall, creating a barrier of webs. 

"I'm doing my best!" I replied. "It takes time!" 

Below me I could see the rest of the avengers attempting to hack or shoot at the black masses, to no avail. They were not of this world, our weapons were practically useless.

"Have. To. Let. Go!" Aditi cried, tears pouring from her eyes, glistening like pools of oil. 

"Just a little longer!" I called. The orb of white light was nearly as big as I could get it. To blast it in all directions, it'd need to be maximum size. 

"I... I can't!" She screamed, the purple lines quivering and sputtering as Aditi's body began to shake. 

"ONE MORE SECOND!" I screamed.

"Alina, hurry!" Came Thor's booming voice, as crackles of lightning periodically struck the animals. With every electrical strike they seemed to fade, just a little. But not enough.

I needed just one more second, just one more second, just one more-

Aditi's purple lines exploded, sending shockwaves through my entire body. I felt joyful, and terrified, and angry, and jealous, and excited, and sad, and calm, and lost, and found, all at once. It was practically debilitating, as though my soul was being pulled in every direction possible. I saw a young Aditi in a playground with her parents, reading a book by a window as rain pounded the glass, in the principle's office across from a tearful boy with his arm in a cast, at the kitchen table with her mother doing math, seeing Harry Potter in the cinema. It was like I was being given a storyboard of her life, of her best and worst moments. I saw Roara disappear into the falling building, a boy in a suit of red and blue telling her she would be alright, I saw Peter pull off his mask and reveal his face to Aditi for the first time. I saw the traumatic vision she'd had of Roara that had caused her to have a seizure, I saw Peter Parker in an avocado face mask as they watched movies and ate pizza, I saw Peter Parker falling asleep in his school work, I saw Peter Parker telling jokes, Peter Parker building a lego set, Peter Parker biting his lip, Peter Parker pulling a hand through his hair, Peter Parker laughing and dancing around his room, Peter Parker holding her close on his bed with shining eyes. 

And then my energy was releasing, being forced out of me by some unknown power. My suit exploded, bits of metal firing off in every direction, as my light shot out at the dark creatures. Somehow I wasn't falling, I should be falling, I should be falling. But I wasn't. I could hear the creatures screams above my own cries as they faded into my light. Then they were gone. And my light vanished. 

And then I was falling.