Chapter 7 – A Battle of the Ages
The inside of the quinjet fell quiet as New York City came into view. The sight of strange alien aircrafts racing out of the portal stunned the jets occupants. Wreaking havoc as they terrorised the innocent citizens of the city with a barrage of attacks.
"Oh my God." Steve murmured; his eyes fixed on the vanguard of the Chitauri army.
Ophelia's stomach lurched in sudden terror. Not for her own wellbeing, she was far past having any regard for that, but for her mother's. Laying in a hospital bed, out of touch from a world that looked to be on the brink of chaos.
The thought of these creatures laying a hand on her mama was more than enough motivation for Ophelia.
Loki would lose this day, or she would die fighting.
"Stark, we're heading north east." Natasha connected to Starks comms, Clint smoothly guiding the jet between buildings and hostiles.
"What, did you stop for drive-thru? Swing up Park, I'm gonna lay 'em out for you." Tony answered back; armoured up in his Iron Man suit and weaving expertly between buildings. A pack of Chitauri flyers on his tail.
Natasha released a machine gun attached to the quinjet, waiting for just the right moment of impact. Rapidly, Stark raced in front of the jet, bringing the Chitauri flyers in range for Natasha to fire at them. She laid waste to the invaders as Clint flew the jet to Stark Towers.
"I spy a little bitch that's about to die." Ophelia hummed, spotting Loki on the roof of the tower as he fought Thor.
She ignores the slightly louder throat clearing from Steve, enjoying his distaste for her language use. Clint's cheek twitched in amusement before he turned the quinjet to face the duelling gods.
Natasha carefully aims and fires the machine gun, letting loose a volley of bullets at Loki. But the god effortlessly dodges the shots fired and aims his sceptre at the jet. Firing his own energy blast, he strikes the quinjet, causing one of the jets wings to catch fire.
The quinjet teeters dangerously, alarms blaring as the group lose velocity and start edging to the ground. Steve and Ophelia hold on to the railings tightly as the jet spirals out of control. Hanging in mid-air until a rough landing in the middle of the street yanks them to the ground.
"I'm honestly surprised that didn't kill us." Ophelia muttered as the cockpit opened. Clint and Natasha hurrying out of their seatbelts as Steve bounded onto the street.
Ophelia quickly made sure to pull her mask up before stepping out, no need to cause a raucous at school the next day. She had enough problems with her Physics teacher; she didn't need to add superhero alter ego to that list.
"We gotta get back up there." Cap shouts out as the group runs to the centre of the street, past panicked civilians trying to get to safety and the broken remains of Lower Manhatten.
A deep, bone chilling roar echoes across the city.
Suddenly, the portal unleashes a behemoth of a creature. Armoured and menacing beyond belief the leviathan languidly glides above the city, slicing through buildings like butter. Chitauri foot soldiers shoot out of the creature, attaching themselves to high rise buildings and scuttling up the floors. Attacking anything in sight.
The four of them watch in stupor as the enemy descends on them. Understandably overwhelmed at the war they're expected to fight. And win.
"It's never a normal Sunday afternoon with you guys, is it?" Ophelia directs to the other heroes, her eyes still fixed on the flying Chitauri.
"Where's the fun in normal?" Natasha retorts, shaking herself free from the shock of seeing real life aliens.
"Stark, are you seeing this?" Steve breathlessly asked, the man out of time was really thrown in the deep end with this one. Poor guy was still figuring out Gmail.
"I'm seeing, still working on believing." Stark replies, flying alongside the leviathan to get a better look, "Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"
"Banner?"
"Just keep me posted." The comms go quiet after that, Stark presumably taking the fight to the invaders. The four of them move to take cover from the Chitauri squadrons.
"We've got civilians trapped up here." Clint relays crouched behind a cab, his bow at the ready.
"Ummm, Cap? We got incoming." Ophelia calls out before a horde of Chitauri fired shots at the street from above.
Everyone takes cover as energy blasts rain down on the surrounding area. Screams and smoke choke the air as Loki's grunts shoot down anything that moves, igniting the street below. Ophelia flicks her gauntlets to their full form in anticipation, gearing up for another fight.
"They're fish in a barrel down there." Cap tightens his hold on his shield as he looks down at the destruction.
A cluster of Chitauri foot soldiers come up from behind, leaping from their chariots and firing a blast at Steve's head. Natasha quickly unclips her guns and returns fire as Clint finds a new place for cover.
"We got this. It's good. Go!" Natasha reassures.
"You think you can hold them off?" Steve asks while Ophelia keeps her eyes on the flying chariots above. Their shots hitting too close for her comfort.
"Captain." Clint readies his custom-made arrows, "It would be my genuine pleasure."
The archer jumps up and releases an arrow through the heads of one of the Chitauri. Somehow hitting another two at the same time and downing them.
"I've got the flyers." Ophelia announced, backing up a few paces to prepare a leap upwards.
"Be careful Ophelia." Steve warned, his eyes shining with worry for the teenager.
"Don't worry Cap, it's like playing whack a mole. Only with more booms involved." She cheekily grinned under her mask at the Captain before setting her arms alight with nuclear energy and sprinting to the edge of the bridge. Steve right on her heels.
As the Captain jumps down to the roof of the bus below, Ophelia infuses energy to her legs and shoots up in the air. Trailing burning energy from her enhanced jump. She soon becomes level with a group of Chitauri chariots aiming their blasters at the Captain and shooting at his small figure from the sky.
Ophelia draws her right arm back and hurls a barrage of long-distance energy blasts at the Chitauri as she falls in the air. The attacks overwhelm the flying enemy and impact their vehicles with a vicious discharge of heat. The Chitauri lose control of their chariots and shatter onto the ground in a blaze of molten metal.
Landing on the falling remains of the spacecraft, Ophelia leaps from chariot to chariot. Charging up her fists and unleashing a hail of lethal strikes on the piloting aliens. On one of her landings a Chitauri soldier catches Ophelia off guard, managing to grab a hold of her foot before she launches off.
She twirls around in indignation at the soldier as it aims a glowing weapon at her face.
"Don't." Ophelia kicked the Chitauri's face in with her leg guards, "Touch." She kicked it again, "My." And again, "Shoes." The Chitauri flies out of the chariot with a boot imprint burnt on its face.
She nods in appreciation of job well done before vaulting over the spacecraft and continuing her self-stylised game of Whack a Chitauri. Bonus points if you made the chariots collide in a fiery ball of death.
During her storm of attacks, Ophelia noticed that when she lost herself in the battle; to her surprise, her body held itself up without support. She was levitating. But as soon as her focus was lost, so was her new found ability.
Unable to do anything about it, Ophelia decided to ignore the problem and come back to it later.
Minutely glancing down to check up on her teammates, Ophelia is alarmed to see Natasha and Clint slowly being overrun by the foot soldiers on the streets.
Leaping from the chariot she had just finished blowing open with her blasts, Ophelia free falls to the ground level. She quickly directs energy to her leg guards and makes a rough landing on top of three Chitauri foot soldiers. Their position far too close to Natasha and Clint for her liking.
With gritted teeth she punches out her fists to release a scorching hot beam of nuclear energy from each of her gauntlets. Disintegrating a group of Chitauri on one side while Cap and the newly arrived Thor take care of the other.
"What's the story upstairs?" Steve asks Thor, adjusting his grip on the shield.
Ophelia wipes blue blood from her boots as she walks up to the group, shooting a small wink at Natasha when she catches her eye. The redhead scoffs in amusement before tuneing back into the conversation.
"The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable." The Norse god answered.
"Thor is right. We gotta deal with these guys." Tony's voiced sounded over the comms as he flew around the city.
"How do we do this?" Natasha questioned.
"As a team." Cap answered shortly.
Ophelia made a brief mental note to make Cap watch the High School Musical films. She had a feeling that he would enjoy their message of teamwork.
"I have unfinished business with Loki." Thor grouched.
"Yeah, get in line." Clint said, fixing his arrowheads. Still bitter about having his mind controlled by the insane god.
"Hey Thor!" Ophelia gets the god of thunders attention, his face piquing in curiosity, "Did Loki by any chance act like his chest was hurt?" Ophelia questioned with barely contained glee.
"As a matter of fact, he did seem to be nursing his chest far more frequently than usual." Thor replied, his face then lit up as he remembered the final blast Ophelia sent the god.
Ophelia snickered to herself with malicious joy. If Loki was going to give her internal bleeding and broken ribs, she'd get his ass right back.
"Sucks to be him right now." She smirked viciously, Thor nudging her arm with his elbow in acknowledgment.
"Save it." Steve called out, bringing everyone's attention back onto him.
"Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. Without him these things could run wild. We got Stark up top, he's gonna need us..." The Captain was interrupted by the soft rumbling of a motorbike coming up the street. Ophelia raised her eyebrows in surprise as Bruce stepped off the bike to join the team.
"You've got fantastic timing Bruce." Ophelia spoke to the approaching doctor, a double thumbs up aimed at him.
"So, this all seems horrible." Bruce wryly replied, a small grimace on his face.
"I've seen worse." Natasha said, an expression of caution on her face.
Ophelia would hazard a guess and say the Hulk was implied here, though she would call the big guy an occupational hazard at best.
"Sorry." He apologised to her.
"No. We could use a little worse."
"Stark? We got him." Steve called into the comms to Tony.
"Banner?" Stark answered.
"Just like you said."
"Then tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you."
As Stark flew past a corner Ophelia caught sight of the colossal space whale at his heels. Thor readied his hammer at the quickly approaching leviathan; its body scraping against high rise buildings and tearing up concrete. Ophelia grimaced when she saw the row of gigantic teeth on the alien whale, a decidedly gruesome way to die.
"I... I don't see how that's a party..." Natasha stumbled over her words.
"I think I'll just stick to drinking games if this is Stark's idea of a party." Ophelia muttered under her breath. As the leviathan loomed closer to the team, anxieties rose.
"Dr. Banner." Cap walked up to doctor, urgency on his face, "Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."
"That's my secret, Captain." Bruce strolled casually as the leviathan was about to crash into everyone, "I'm always angry."
The mild-mannered doctor quickly started transforming into his greener counterpart. His shirt teared from the rapid size change as his skin morphed green. With bulging muscles and a scowl on his face, the Hulk slammed his fist into the leviathan. Halting its trajectory with his sheer strength and driving the creature into the concrete ground.
As the body of the space whale started piling up, threatening to collapse on top of the team, Stark took it upon himself to send a host of rockets to the exposed flesh of the leviathan.
"Hold on." Stark called out before multiple explosions were set off, ripping its colossal body to pieces as it began falling apart.
Everyone took cover as parts of the creatures' armour fell around them. Cap used his shield to protect himself and Natasha from the falling debris. Clint took cover behind a fallen car as Thor used his hammer as a makeshift shield. Ophelia using her gauntlets to repel the larger pieces of fallen armour.
The destruction of the leviathan drew the entire invading forces attention to the team, their loud screeches reverberating across the city as they zeroed in.
Back to back they stood, Hulk roaring in challenge to the Chitauri. Weapons at the ready with nothing but absolute resolve thrumming through their veins.
The Avengers have assembled.
Ophelia's head snapped to the portal as she saw a new collection of shadows exit the hole in the sky. She smacked Thor and Clint's arms to divert their attention to the new problem.
"Guys." Natasha called out to get the rest of the team's attention as a whole new host of Chitauri descended on the city, three more leviathans joining the battleground.
"How many of these ugly bâtards are there?" Ophelia groaned in exasperation, already feeling that today was going to be an obnoxiously long day.
"The more we kill; the more Loki will just call in for back up." Ophelia said, her voice grave as Tony nodded in agreement.
"Call it, Cap." Tony announced.
"Alright, listen up." Steve called for everyone's attention as he started designating roles for the team. Taking on the team leader mantle like he was born for it, "Until we can close that portal up there, we're gonna use containment. Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out; you turn it back or your turn it to ash."
"Wanna give me a lift?" Clint asked Tony.
"Right. Better clench up, Legolas" Tony walked behind Clint to clasp the back of his vest before flying up in the air.
"Thor, you've gotta try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You've got the lightning. Light the bastards up." Thor nodded before spinning his hammer to fling himself in the air.
"You and me, we stay here on the ground, keep the fighting here." Steve directed to Natasha.
"Delacour, keep at the mid-level. High enough to take down flyers and get into buildings but low enough come to ground level at any time." Ophelia nodded at the Captains order before readying her leg guards for an enhanced jump.
"And Hulk." The big guy turned to Steve at attention.
"Smash." Hulk gave a primal grin that promised destruction.
Ophelia and the Hulk both shot upwards at the same time, letting loose a devastating round of attacks on the Chitauri scaling the buildings. The Hulk smashing and walloping the Chitauri into submission while Ophelia crushed and melted the bodies of the enemy.
"We make a pretty good team big guy!" Ophelia yelled out as she shot mid-range nuclear blasts at the Chitauri, quickly melting their armour.
The Hulk grunted in agreement before leaping into the flight path of half a dozen Chitauri flyers. Leaving a trail of broken bodies in his violent wake.
"You have to wonder about that guy's resting blood pressure." Ophelia pondered aloud before throwing herself back into action.
A/N - We've only got a couple of chapters left until The Avengers ends but I am planning for Ophelia to be in Thor: A Dark World after. Not my favourite mcu film but I'm adding a short original story for Ophelia that you might hopefully enjoy. Thanks for reading!