∆ {5⁹} {METAL} ∆
THE ROOM FELT eerily silent as Wanda watched Roxi help Shuri work, a small, sad smile resting on her face. The woman was somehow ignoring the sounds of the battle outside; the roar of their forces, the rumble of Thanos' army's feet, and every now and then, Wanda could hear her muter words to herself in a language she assumed was Spanish. It was delicate, soft, compared to the brutality that surrounded them, and Wanda found herself wishing that she could be as calm as Roxi was.
In actual fact, Roxi was trying to still her wavering hands, and slow her quickening breath. The chill had increased tenfold by now, and she could feel it beginning to affect her body. But some part of her knew that wasn't the real reason for her racing heart; she was scared, and that was an emotion that she couldn't deal with at that moment. Consequently, she was trying to shove it down, to drown it in the chaos that seemed to a permanent resident in her head.
Shuri had said something to someone through the comms about their progress, and yet she couldn't bring herself to focus on it. Just on the metal before her, on Vision, because if she didn't focus on the potential, on the warmth of this metal, the dread and the cold of the other would surely overtake her system and she would freeze. If she froze, the consequences could be disastrous for all of them. She couldn't freeze, because-.
"Ryder, we need you down here as fast as possible." Because of that. Roxi sighed quietly, and after receiving a nod from Shuri that said she'd made the adjustments to work with out her, she ran through the building as fast as she could. She'd memorised the palace on the way to the lab (old habits die hard, she supposed), and was able to take turns and stairs easily. Within a few minutes, she found herself on the grass of the battlefield, the earth quaking beneath her with the force of the battle.
The front of the fight was far away, and yet she could still make out the figure of Tony's Hulkbuster suit, which ironically, Bruce was piloting. She let out a short blast of energy around her, wanting nothing more than to force that chill away, reminding herself to conserve her energy as she hadn't so many times before. She was relieved to find that the things that were attacking them still wore metal armour, even if it was nothing like as much as the Chitauri had and was simply plating here and there, it still gave her far more to work with.
Even as Roxi helped a member of the Dora Milaje up from where she'd been trapped underneath one of the thing's crude bodies, she found her attention near the edge of the shield dome, where her family were struggling, where she couldn't reach them in time.
And then there was a blinding light, and Roxi felt her cold blood surge with an electricity so powerful that she felt it energise her. Whatever had arrived in that column of light, had brought a metal so strong and surging with energy that she could feel it from hundreds of metres away. Then the light cleared, and Roxi squinted her eyes, trying to make out who it was that had arrived, too far away to be able to see properly. There was a yell from a voice that sounded somewhat familiar, and after checking that the woman she'd helped up was alright, she found herself sprinting through the grass, over bodies and blood and carnage towards her team - her family - and closer to the new arrival.
Thankfully, she found herself arriving with a lull in the creatures attacking Steve; she'd run for him because he was the easiest to see, and she drew to a stop, her chest heaving slightly as she glanced around. This battlefield held a ridiculous amount of potential for her to exploit, and she began to play around with it. With a flick of her finger, two of the creatures went flying and landed nastily on the ground, where they were quickly trampled and quieted. Roxi stared after them in wonder, until she heard Steve talk next to her, and brought her attention to the newcomer.
It was Thor. With short hair, and a different coloured eye than the last time she'd seen him. But her eyes were drawn away from his appearance almost immediately, and to the axe he held in his hand. It was that that held such pure power and electric potential, and for a moment, she couldn't find it within herself to look away.
"New haircut?"
"I notice you've copied my beard," and then he acknowledged her, and kept her from glancing at the weapon every few seconds, "Lady Ryder. Oh by the way, this is a friend of mine, Tree." Roxi turned at the same time as Steve did, finding herself looking at what looked like a teenager-sized tree-man-thing, spearing several of the creatures on an extended version of an arm, flailing them about.
"I am Groot!"
"I am Steve Rogers."
"And I am fed up of these fucking aliens," Roxi hissed, letting out another burst of energy and crushing a few groups of the things, drenching the grass in blue blood. She was drawing from a well of power that sat inside of her, one that at the moment seemed infinite, that she could dip a pail into and use a bucket of it whenever she needed to, and it felt exhilarating in a way she didn't truly know how to survive. Despite not being a place where she knew, this was her domain, this metal was under her command.
Then, there was a rumbling, and Roxi felt the earth beneath her vibrate violently, so much so that she had to reposition herself to keep her balance. A sharp slash of cold cut through her veins, seconds before a set of massive, wicked-looking blades erupted from underneath. For a second, Roxi just stared; how the hell had these aliens transported them.
Common sense retook her mind, and she began working along the line, simply collapsing the structural bar at the top of each of the sets of blades and forcing each blade down so that it didn't do any collateral damage. It was methodical, careful, and it would be enough.
"What's happening?" Wanda's voice cut through her calm, concern coating each syllable, no doubt having felt the vibration from the lab where she stood with Shuri.
"I can manage it Wanda, stay where you are," Roxi replied sharply, forcing down another once she made sure that no-one was underneath with a quick burst of power, moving closer to where Natasha and Okoye were fighting together in hopes of being able to protect them more easily. It worked, for a moment, a pulse of energy creating a ring of crushed carcasses around them. Natasha took the moment to breathe, knowing exactly what had happened, while Okoye whipped around, evaluating the scene before her, and finding one of the Avengers whose power she'd never heard of.
They acknowledged each other briefly, before Roxi slammed her attention back to one of the stray blades. She tore this one to pieces with a glance and made her way over to the nearest pieces of wreckage, using the broken end of one of the Dora Milaje's spears and a large, jagged piece of the blade to create a crude sort of barbed weapon, the cold and the potential both now quite literally at her fingertips. Natasha watched her manipulate the weapon into being, warping the substance from both together in an odd twist of silver.
"Forgot you could do that," she admitted, referring to the way that Roxi could change the shape of the already-existing metal. The last time she'd seen her do that was at the woman's house before the fall of SHIELD. There was another rumble, and another set of blades came straight for the three women. Roxi looked up, raising a hand to wave away the monstrous thing casually, but stiffened when wisps of scarlet danced in the air before her.
Wanda caught the thing, lifting it into the air, taking a quick look behind her at the creatures that still outnumbered them at least fifty to one, and threw the now-separated blades around them, at the creatures, leaving a small channel open in the back. Recovering from her shock, Roxi put down her arm swiftly and sent a shockwave out around them, blocking the channel with the carcasses and leaving them a few more moments to talk.
"What are you doing here, Wanda, I told you I had it." Roxi's voice took a dangerous tone, but Wanda and Natasha had known the woman long and closely enough that they knew it was inspired by worry. But Wanda's face still faltered, and when she opened her mouth to voice a reason, she found nothing coming out. She'd seen the blades so close to the women, and she'd panicked. And now Vision was alone.
"Why were the two of you up there all this time?" Okoye asked, her eyes flicking back to Roxi's crude spear every few seconds.
"Because we were protection," Roxi replied shortly. She respected the woman, but they didn't have time for laborious explanations.
"Guys, we got a Vision situation here," Sam called through the comms, and Roxi found herself shooting Wanda a pointed look, that was almost certainly lost in the fray as she pulled all the metal plates on one of the creatures as far away from each other as she could. Her face scrunched at the blue blood, and the way its insides hung in the air for a few seconds before hitting the ground.
"On my way," Roxi heard Wanda reply quickly, before the young Maximoff let out a cry of pain. Roxi whirled around, worry fuelling her movements to find the blue-haired alien within the ring of carnage.
Shit. What with the sheer amount of cold metal, it was hard to distinguish one small part from the rest. She couldn't help using her powers.
"He'll die alone, as will you."
"She's not alone," Natasha disagreed, and Roxi let the person she loved, her sister-figure, and the head of the King's personal guard fight her. It ended in a spray of blue blood.
"That was really gross."
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Turned it longer than I thought it would, finished this at 00:00 on New Year's. Hope 2022 is great to all you guys <3 One more chapter of IW, and it's a sad one. You guys better get ready for this and for endgame, i have a list of plans.
JABBERJAY_011
WORDS [1805]
WRITTEN [31.12.2021]
PUBLISHED [8.1.2022]