BURN-CHAPTER FIVE; Don't fear an army or a Hulk, fear the demon
CONFERENCE ROOM, HELLICARRIER
Cain, Steve, Tony, and Fury are gathered around a conference table with Hill standing off to the side. Fury pulls a handful of cards out of his pocket.
"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket." Fury explains. "Guess he never did get you to sign them." Fury scatters them on the table, some covered in blood. They're Captain America cards. Cain scowls angrily, looking them over. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Think I had that coming." Fury monologues as he begins to make his way around the table to the three sitting quietly. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number, though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark and Cain know this, called the Avengers Initiative." Cain looks up when his name is called before looking back down at the cards.
Loki killed Coulson. Cain should've went after him the minute Natasha was safe. No, the second. Maybe he could've done something-saved him...
Cain shakes his head. Hanging around these hero types is rubbing off on him.
"Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes." Fury finished and Cain stands abruptly, clearing the conference table of its papers-the cards included.
"SON OF A BITCH!" Cain roars, angry about the could have beens and what ifs, and onlys...
Cain storms out of the room, not giving anyone a second glance.
Cain stops in the middle of a hallway.
Loki.
"You cocky son of a bitch..." Cain whispers before pausing. "Cocky." Cain murmurs. "With a huge ego to boot. A God complex." Cain continues, piecing it together slowly but surely as his ears ring, remembering a conversation. "An ugly ass tower with a name on it-" Cain's head shoots up. "That's what you want. An audience." Cain smirks maliciously before disappearing into black smoke.
STARK TOWER, NEW YORK
Cain finds Loki waiting outside on the platform of Stark Tower.
"Expecting someone?" Cain calls, slushing the whiskey in his glass around. He sips at it as Loki slowly turns to face him. Loki glances back at the sky before entering the penthouse.
"Do you always enter a person's home without permission?" Loki asks and Cain raises a brow, sipping more before placing the glass on the bar top.
"Funny, I could ask you the same thing." Cain retorts. Loki smiles with mirth, his eyes gleaming.
"What is a demon doing with a team of humans?" Loki asks curiously.
"Boredom." Cain answers immediately. Loki chuckles.
"No, I don't think that's true. I think, Father of Murder, that you want people to think you're good." Loki replies coyly, walking around the bar. "I think that you want people to look at you differently. To not see the monster that you are, and instead see a hero." Loki continues until he's right in front of Cain who is watching him closely. "But I'm afraid that's not going to be the case." With that, Loki touches Cain's chest with the tip of his scepter. The light glows and seeps into Cain's chest but just as it reaches Cain's eyes, it powers off. Loki stares at the spot where his scepter and Cain's chest meet in shock.
"Sorry to disappoint you, Lolo, but you see, I have no soul for you to take over." Cain coos, pushing the scepter away with his left index finger. "I lost that when I succeeded in killing my brother, which, by the way, want some pointers?" Cain asks teasingly, leaning in close.
"But... how?" Loki asks, surprised. Cain smirks evilly at Loki as he leans ever closer, their noses inches from brushing.
"Tell me, are gods scared of the dark?" Cain asks huskily, his candy apple green eyes shifting to pure black.
Loki backs away in fear. "No..." Loki whispers and Cain grins.
"Yes." Cain hisses. "You know, I never would've went out of my way to find you before the others. No, you brought this on yourself. I could let the other killings go, I didn't know any of them. But you had to go and kill a man I knew, a good man." Cain growls, pulling his blade out. "Now I have to kill you."
"Stand down, Cain." Tony orders as he enters his penthouse. Cain spins to glare at the human with his black eyes, making Tony freeze in his step. Cain's eyes return to normal as he sheathes his knife. "Would you like a drink?" Tony offers the God of Mischief, taking Cain's halfway finished glass and refilling it, passing it back to the demon, before pouring himself some. Loki eyes the demon before his gaze flickers to Tony when he realizes Cain's not going to do anything with Tony around.
"Stalling me won't change anything." Loki replies, effectively rejecting the drink. Cain snorts, guzzling down the bitter beverage.
"No, no, no!" Tony chastises. "I'm threatening." Tony corrects. "No drink? You sure? I'm having one." To prove his point, he starts drinking from the glass he poured himself.
"The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that." Loki sneers. Cain scratches at his head, wondering where he's heard the name before.
"The Avengers." Tony states. Loki stares at the human, confused. Cain snatches the bottle of whiskey from Tony and drinks straight from the bottle. Tony's right brow quirks before he shakes his head and looks back at Loki. "It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' type of thing." Tony elaborates.
"Yes, I've met them." Loki deadpans, unimpressed.
Tony smiles. "Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one." Tony huffs a small, fake, laugh. "But, let's do a head count here. Your brother, the demi-God;" Tony starts to list from behind the bar. Loki turns to face the large window and from his seat, Cain can see Tony put on a high tech bracelet. "A demon, who can take what you demi-Gods dish out."
"Which isn't much, honestly." Cain inputs, plopping his first blade onto the bar counter when he realizes Tony's raring up for an attack. Tony shrugs.
"A super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend;" Tony continues to list, as if he wasn't interrupted at all, "a man with breath-taking anger management issues; a couple of master assassins, and you, big fella," Tony calls to Loki who's eying him with amusement, "you've managed to piss off every single one of them." Here, to emphasize Tony's statement, Cain turns around with angry obsidian eyes. Loki isn't as afraid of them as he was before.
"That was the plan," Loki whispers, winking at Cain.
"Not a very smart one." Cain growls, standing with his blade in his hand. His mark burns for blood. "Tony and I don't even need the rest of the gang to show. Hell, I can take you down myself, Lolo." Cain coos, letting go of his humanity to let the demon side out and play.
"I doubt you can take out an army." Loki sneers, keeping his voice leveled. His emerald gaze never once leaves Cain.
"We have a Hulk." Tony calls, butting in. Truth is, the human knew very well he should not come between these two if they chose to fight. He knew for certain that he'd be torn to shreds.
But he's Tony Stark so he does it anyway.
Tony slowly makes his way around his bar and down the few steps until he reaches the same level as Loki and Cain.
"I thought the beast had wandered off." Loki snarks, gesturing with his staff to the window. Cain tenses, ready to strike but Tony grabs his left shoulder to stop him. Seems Tony wanted the first crack at the demi-God. When Cain relaxes, only slightly, Tony let's go.
"You're missing the point." Tony is quick to say before Loki opens his mouth again. "There's no throne, there is no version of this, where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it's too much for us, but it's all on you." Tony pauses and Cain watches the human closely. "Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it." Tony adds lowly before taking a sip of his drink. Cain stiffens when Loki makes his way over to Tony slowly, his obsidian eyes watching Loki's every step. Especially when Loki starts raising the scepter.
"How will your friends have time for me," Loki starts, "when they're so busy fighting you." Loki brings a powering up scepter to Tony's chest and taps it.
PING!
Nothing. Cain slowly smirks, realizing it has no effect on Tony.
Confused, Loki tries again.
PING!
And again, nothing.
"It should work." Loki states, absolutely lost. Tony shrugs.
"Well, performance issues. You know?" Tony jokes. "Not uncommon. One-out-of-five-" In anger, Loki grabs Tony by the throat, cutting the human off, and flings him across the room. Tony hits the floor with a pained grunt and Cain lets out a bone chilling roar as he rushes Loki. The God merely sends the demon flying with his scepter before taking the chance to grab Tony by the throat again.
"You will all fall before me." Loki growls before throwing Tony through the window. Cain's eyes widen in horror, knowing he's lost yet another human. Cain's blade, which was knocked out of his hand when he was thrown back, flies back into his grip and he's charging at Loki again. Cain swipes the blade across Loki's face, making a long gash across the god's left cheek.
"You bastard!" Cain roars, continuing to swipe at Loki with the blade. Loki manages to dodge some, paring others with his scepter, but he still gets nicked here and there. His clothing has some large tears in them now. Their fight is stopped by something red whizzing by. A few minutes later, Iron Man is floating in the air and looking at them.
"And there's one other person you pissed off! His name was Phil." Iron Man adds, gloating down at Loki. Cain sighs with relief, backing away when Tony winks at him. Loki raises his scepter to attack Iron Man but Tony fires at Loki, sending the God back on his ass. Cain smirks. Suddenly, a portal rips open in the sky and an army spills out on chariots with high-tech weapons in their hands.
"Shit." Cain hisses.
"Right. Army." Tony comments before flying up to the portal and launching rockets from his shoulders at the incoming swarm of aliens. Iron Man flies up towards the portal. From his shoulders, a miniature multiple rocket launcher, pops out and fires. The rockets hit several targets but thousands more fly out of the portal. Cain groans.
"Join a team, he said." Cain begins to list, taking off in a jog towards the balcony. "It'll be simple, he said." Cain exits the penthouse and steps foot on the balcony before picking up his pace. "Just help us get a god that's throwing a tantrum, he said." Cain growls before leaping off the balcony and onto one of the chariots flying by. He rips the alien off and hurls it behind him like a rag doll before steering the chariot and continuing a path of destruction. "I'm gonna kick Fury's ass for this." Cain grunts.
A Quinjet comes to fly beside Cain and the demon looks over to see a short haired brunet staring out the window of it. Cain raises a brow.
'Wasn't he mind controlled?' Cain wonders to himself. He sees Captain America behind the man, or Hawkeye as Cain learned earlier, and nods at Cain to confirm Hawkeye is good now. Cain shrugs, continuing to fly the alien chariot forward and fight off any foe that gets in his way.
A loud boom brings Cain's attention back to the quinjet and he stops the chariot he stole, turning it around to find one of the jet's wings on fire. Cain sighs as he uses one hand to steady the plane while using the other to steer the chariot to stay alongside the quinjet as Cain helps Natasha land. Cain watches as the back of the jet opens up into a ramp. Captain America runs down, followed by Hawkeye and Black Widow. Each one has their respected weapons in hand.
"You should work on your landing." Cain teases, smirking at Black Widow. Her eyes narrow an inch and her lips twitch downward, but otherwise her face stays neutral.
"Thanks for the help, soldier." Captain America comments and Cain rolls his eyes. Hawkeye prepares to shoot and arrow but Cain rolls his left hand, causing the alien that was sneaking up behind him to combust. Hawkeye and Captain America stare at Cain in shock.
"Again, I'm not a soldier." Cain quips before leaping into the air and snatching another chariot before snapping the neck of the alien. "Also, there's a big ass alien coming through that portal." Cain informs, gesturing to the portal before flying off on the chariot to kill more aliens.
~Cas 😘