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Issue #3 by A. Crute
Sept 2008 |
"Avengers Assemble"
The woods…
Clint Barton edged up the rock face of the cliff. He clung to the rock and grunted as he pulled up with his arms and fixed his hand on another outcropping, he pushed up with his legs powering him that little further.
He gripped the top of the outcrop and hauled himself up. It was only fifteen or twenty feet but he could feel the burn in his arms. He had strong arms and hands from his years as an archer. His fingers held the rock with a vice-like grip each time he found a new handhold.
He had first picked up the bow in his youth when he ran away to join the circus. He had been orphaned and wanted a different life. That’s what he told himself at any rate, in truth he just followed his older brother Barney. They found their new lives under the big top; he found friends and he found family.
He was trained in both archery and swordsmanship by two men who were like fathers to him, Trickshot and Swordsman. When he found out that they were criminals it shook his world.
Clint turned his back on his ‘family’ and went it alone. He decided to make up for their crimes and to make something of himself by becoming a hero. The people he looked up to had betrayed him and so he was going to become someone that others could look up too, someone who wouldn’t let those who looked up to him down.
His plan didn’t go exactly the way he intended as he was branded a criminal, had to fight Iron Man several times and teamed with a soviet superspy who thankfully found her own redemption too.
Next it was Hawkeye who joined The Avengers, The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and despite the indignation of some of it’s founding members at his inclusion he made a name for himself and he made a difference. He became a perennial member of the team, whatever the problem he was there to fight it head on. He became a true hero. He first followed and then led The Avengers in creating two whole new branches the West Coast team and the much derided (and not officially aligned) Great Lake Avengers.
The Avenger’s were more a family to him than anyone was in the past. He found love in the shape of his beautiful wife Bobbi AKA Mockingbird. Within the team he also found people who he would classify as friends until the day he died…like Hercules, Wonderman and Captain America. He didn’t always get along with the man who many consider the face of the Avengers but the more they worked together the more their respect for one another grew. Eventually Clint came to think of Steve like an older brother. They were equals and they were friends. It was with The Avengers Clint found the people he really thought of his family.
Like most families there were the ups and downs, the falling outs and making ups and no one did them more in style than Hawkeye as he helped whip the former villains The Thunderbolts into shape and made them an effective and honest crime fighting team.
Then of course as with most families came the making up and he found himself once again amongst his friends and family being that hero he always tried to be.
Then they came.
Clint always thought The Avengers were a lot like Sherlock Holmes once the Vision had put him onto reading all of Sir Arthur’s work. They don’t go looking for trouble, they don’t patrol like Spider-Man or explore like the Fantastic Four. They sit around and train until something comes to their attention, something others tried to deal with and couldn’t. In the past it was always enough, they always managed to avert the catastrophe. With the zombies it wasn’t the same.
There was a spate of gruesome killings and calls of violence and bizarre attacks over a couple of days which didn’t really seem too odd, especially in New York City. There was the fact that most of the events had the same MO of a savage animal attack complete with the attacker biting their victim. The police were still investigating.
In the world they lived in who knows what could be doing it. Some crazed mutant? Some odd serial attacker? A cult of some kind? The police don’t have a big signal to call in superheroes, they do their job and occasionally a superhero stumbles across the case and helps out in their own special way.
By the time the Avengers knew anything out of the ordinary was happening it had already escalated. Hawkeye clearly remembered what he saw as he piloted the Quinjet over the top of Times Square.
The police were at one side in full on riot gear firing smoke bombs and tear gas into the crowds who were dotted in no organised order on the other side of the famous landmark.
The crowds getting dusted were of all shapes and sizes and weren’t wearing a costume or colourful uniforms like they were used to so it certainly didn’t look like Hydra or AIM or any such thing like that. It looked like a riot of some kind.
The Avengers usually dealt with superhuman events but this still fell into their general aim to protect people and it could still have been something which really needed investigating. Mind control or an empathic attack riling people up?
When Clint began to lower the Quinjet it was Jan who pointed something out. “They’re attacking people!” Clint did a double take and realised she was right. There were people lurching towards the police but it was in no ordered manor or vicious angry rush as you would expect. There were smaller pockets dotted around huddling around someone else…someone screaming in most cases and there were those who were lurching towards other people.
“It’s looks like a Romero film down there,” added Vance AKA Justice. He was one of the newer Avengers. In that sentence he solidified what Clint was thinking as he looked down at the scene. Neither realised how accurate they were.
The Quinjet touched down and the team of Avengers who had been at the mansion when the news report played jumped into action.
Justice and Firestar exploded into the air together. Jan went in the opposite direction to head to the other side of the square. Thor raised his hammer above his head and the clouds above answered him with a rumble. Julia AKA Arachne leapt and fired a blast of web to a building from which to swing…something Tony whipped up for her. She-Hulk and Hawkeye were the last two from their craft and headed directly for the police.
The order of the day was control. These were civilians with no special powers of any kind the Avengers weren’t there to do the police’s job, they just had to calm everything down and contain any threats as best they could.
A few minutes into the action as the heroes tried to corral the men and women or restrain them in any way they could it soon became clear that it would not work. There was no way to knock them down that they wouldn’t get up from.
It was Vance who first made the defining discovery. He flung out his hand to knock back a middle aged black man who had managed to sneak up behind Firestar. It was unbeknownst to them at the time but what was about to happen was due to the advanced and rapid rotting which the Zed heads seemed to undergo, as he knocked him back gently the entire chest cavity of the body exploded out.
Vance went to pieces, as far as he knew he had just killed a man. He had just blown up an innocent man with his powers. He babbled to himself.
He had been in this situation before when he was forced to lash out at his abusive father to save both himself and his mother.
His team mates yelled for his assistance and for him to do something as his powers were one of the most useful in this situation. He was so far lost in his own thoughts that he barely felt the grip around his ankle. He did however feel the teeth dig into his ankle.
Firestar was the next to fall as seemingly forgetting the danger she rushed to her boyfriend’s side and fell prey to the teeth of the same zombie. They both fell to the ground quickly and began to writhe in pain.
“These poor folk doth carry some dire disease,” warned Thor as he grabbed the back of the man’s shirt and hauled him backwards away from the two teenage team members. His hand pressed firmly on their foreheads. “They burn like fire,” he confirmed to Hawkeye who had dashed to the side of his team mates. Thor had all the memories of his human alter-ego Doctor Donald Blake. “Carried in the bite,” he nodded to himself.
Clint bit his lower lip. “They’re really zombies,” his eyes flicked up and began to notice the small portions of skin flaking away and tears across the flesh of the people his friends were fighting. “Don’t let them bite you…protect the police!” Clint ordered. It was a difficult decision but he had to make it, the Avengers would now shift from simply corralling and separating the people into actively trying to protect the police from the zombies.
The rest of the battle didn’t go well from there. The streets were swarming with the beasts. The tunnels off of the island were clogged with cars and all it took was one or two infected people before the virus swept back.
Hundreds of more zombies were being created across the city every minute and they were flooding out from where they were searching for meat. The Avengers and the police battled valiantly against the monsters but more and more kept coming.
The Avengers all fell rather rapidly once the line of cars and police was broken. Jan, Jen and Juliet all fell in the matter of a couple of minutes from each other as well as a precinct full of police officers as they became overrun. All the while the writhing agony of the two mutants on the team screaming in pain from whatever the infection was doing to them pierced their hearing above the low but loud growling and moaning of the undead. They had yet to see anyone turn into a zombie but by their sheer number and the speed they were arriving Thor was beginning to theorise that the mutants genes were changing the process and drawing it out more than it was to normal humans.
Only Hawkeye and the god of thunder remained standing. They stood back to back atop a police car. Thor was discharging blasts of electricity from his hammer which sundered through the corpses as they clawed towards them. Hawkeye was firing off his arrows through the heads of the monsters as best he could.
“I think this one is over Thor, we need to fall back to another location…call in the others and the military.” Clint gritted his teeth as he spoke. He hated the idea of cutting and running but the fact was this battle was lost and he had to admit it.
“Aye, I doth agree archer…” Thor turned his head to Hawkeye and then out into the sea of zombies as he fired another blast of energy. “You gather the troops. I shall see to our comrades.”
“They’re a lost cause,” Clint flinched as he realised what he just said. He had written off these two teenagers who were in pain and were supposed to be his team mates. “We’ll get them together…maybe they can be helped, they’re fighting it so far.”
“Aye, maybe so…I’ve yet to see any such thing in humans.” Thor turned to face Hawkeye and stopped shooting his bolts of power.
“We’ve yet to see anything of gods either,” Clint fired and arrow and then turned his head to face Thor. The magic metal of his hammer streaked down and slammed into his shoulder.
“Tis a chance we will have to take. Farewell my friend and I shall hope to see you in time.”
“NO!” Clint began to scream to his friend and team mate but his yell was lost. It echoed down the hall of Avenger’s mansion.
Clint shuddered as he moved forward on the edge of the outcrop and peered from behind a tree at the mass of zombies below him which stretched to the fencing around the base. There were a few hundred no doubt from the town nearby who had just wandered off into the woods.
He briefly thought of the few days after that event. How long it took him to pick his way through the remnants of the city and back to the Quinjet without finding any survivors but the Zed heads before he took to the sky. It seemed the entire city’s population was turned in a matter of hours, all cramped in on the tiny island. He and some of the survivors he and some of the other Avengers who he later found had managed to find set up home in the abandoned military base they had found and he now found that under siege and being threatened to be taken away from him.
~SNAP~
Hawkeye turned on a dime and yanked an arrow free of the quiver on his back. It was loaded into the arrow and pulled taut in roughly a second.
Chase screamed and hit the floor. Clint lowered the bow. “Will you stop trying to kill me with arrows!” screamed Chase from where he crouched. His head was pulled into the floor with his metal gloves pressed hard behind his neck.
“You startled me I thought you were one of the zombies.”
“You said that last time…a guy could develop a complex. Is it the personal hygiene thing?” Chase rubbed his hands under his pits before he realised he was wearing metal gauntlets and couldn’t feel anything.
Hawkeye looked at Chase carefully. He couldn’t help but think they were a lot a like. He had only known the kid for about an hour but had already managed to pick up so much about him. He was a cocky kid who liked to hide his intelligence as best he could…he was very good at it. He never really fit in with his family and then found out they were actually quite evil. He set out to make up for everything they had done much like Clint had. He was brave and had already managed to become some sort of guardian for a child he had found who had obviously bonded to him very quickly. Chase was pretty much in the place in his life Clint had been when he joined the Avengers. He needed a guiding hand like Cap had been to him.
“I thought I was alone, you snapped the twig and it startled me.”
“Just what I need a trigger happy archer…a string happy archer? Anyway I thought that twig thing just happened in movies,” Chase shrugged away the thought as quickly as it came into his head. “So why aren’t your friends dealing with the zombies if it’s so important to keep them away from the fence?”
“They’re probably preparing to, they need to get rid of them before enough arrive to tip over the fence but that’ll take a while…we need them gone right away so we can get in.”
“So what’s the plan?” Chase moved closer to Clint and peered over his shoulder down at the horde of amassed zombies below them. They were mostly in the clear around the fence but their numbers did stretch beyond the wooded lining around it interspersing some of them behind bushes and trees. The outcrop looked down on all of this.
“The plan was for you to stay with Sarah and keep her safe while I recon…what makes you think you can follow a battle plan any better.” Hawkeye shook his head. Chase unfortunately reminded him a little too much of himself especially it seemed when it came to taking orders.
“She’s fine with Old Lace. She’ll know when a zombie is coming up quicker than I would and she can move faster than I can….she’s a regular Road Runner to my Droopy.”
“How did you get here anyway?” Hawkeye had been scrambling over rocks and climbed a sheer cliff face to get to this point and yet Chase had managed to get here completely negating the head start Clint had.
“There’s a trail right up here, easy going all the way…how’d you get here?” Chase thumbed behind him.
Hawkeye felt like kicking himself as he glanced behind Chase. He stood up sharply and slid his bow along his arm before removing an arrow from his quiver again. “That smart ass comment about Droopy, I hope you were kidding.” Hawkeye nodded behind Chase.
The blond teen turned and let out a yelp before leaping backwards. A horde of the zombies were staggering up the trail.
There were ten to fifteen of the undead. Their skin was greying and splitting as they shuffled forward revealing a darker tone beneath which still had a pink colouring. There clothing was ripped and stained with old blood and dirt. Several had whole pieces of clothing missing. Several months of constant activity without changing their clothing had left it in tatters and only held together by the dirt pitted across it. Their bodies were fairing just as well, they didn’t seem to have any sort of ability to heal so the constant wear and tear was taking it’s toll.
“Keep calm and keep moving,” Hawkeye unleashed his first arrow as he spoke. The purple shaft hurtled through the air and glanced the side of one of the zombies heads sending pieces of his head flying backwards.
Chase nodded. He lowered his head and stared at his hands. The metal fistigons sparked to life as fire exploded from them for a split second. “I need to concentrate, make it solid…fire just makes these things worse.”
Making solid fire is not an easy thing to do, to most it’s inconceivable to even imagine. Fire is a ‘fluid’ release of energy and most people couldn’t even get their minds around the concept of solid fire. Chase Stein wasn’t one of them, he didn’t have his parents intelligence which would allow him to engineer a device to do such a thing but there were very few things his mind couldn’t imagine. It was just a matter of keeping his mind solely locked on one image which was difficult enough without the corpses which were stumbling towards them.
Clint moved forward and turned his upper body. He fired the arrow from his bow. It arced up into the air and came down in the centre of the zombies before letting out a bright flash. The strength knocked the zombies in front forward and those just behind backwards causing several to stumble to the floor. The explosion managed to blow a huge hole in the head of one of the beasts sending it’s grey matter splattering across his ‘friends’ she slumped forward.
He acted quickly launching several more arrows in quick succession. They soared through the heads of some of the zombies. Two fell as the arrows pierced their brains, two others he hit merely had the arrow sink into their skulls. The portion of their brain or the percentage which needed to be destroyed to kill them hadn’t been.
The arrows of the archer were coming fast and furious as he moved from target to target. He sidestepped left and right as he constantly re-angled his shots to get zombies which were obscured by another or to retry a shot at a zombie whose brain wasn’t destroyed as his arrow penetrated.
Chase grunted behind him, a shaft of flaming energy shot closely past the head of Clint causing him to dodge sideways. The energy exploded through the shoulder of one of the zombies obliterating the bones and muscles causing his arm to drop to the floor. The chest of the zombie behind it exploded backwards out through his back causing the still gnashing head of the monster to tumble and bounce to the ground.
“You were a little close with that one,” Hawkeye warned as he shifted again and fired another volley of arrows. Chase moved in the opposite direction and threw out his hands.
Two large balls of solid flaming energy shot forward one from each glove. They were easier to form than the concentrated shaft so with his concentration broken from the attack and his near miss with Hawkeye they were formed. It could have been worse and simply been a simple blast of flame which would not have made this any easier but rather would have made them more dangerous.
The first ball blasted away one of the zombie’s legs while the second span off into nowhere. The zombie with now only one legs stumbled forward, it’s remaining leg hopping to find purchase and regain balance but it’s slow addled brain going to slowly for it to realise it was useless. It had the effect of it leaping forward towards the two heroes.
Hawkeye launched himself back as it fell to his feet and quickly fired an arrow into the zombie’s head stopping it squirming at his feet. “You really need to work on your aim.”
“You potty train a dinosaur and then I’ll let you mouth off at me about my lack of archery skill,” Chase growled. He launched his hand forward unleashing another blast. This one hit home and blew the head clean of one of the zombies.
Clint fired a couple of more shots, each one hit home perfectly felling the zombie he aimed for. He breathed out slowly and then in as he tried to regulate his breathing. The battle seemed to be over for now.
He lowered his bow and moved quickly behind Chase. “They’re breaking apart, looks like we got their attention.” Hawkeye moved back past Chase who was moving to the edge to look down.
The zombie brigade below were indeed breaking apart. The majority were still hanging around the fence but there were large clumps who seemed to be turning away from the base and stumbling haphazardly into the forest drawn by the noise or the lights of their fight.
Chase turned back to Hawkeye who was crouching over some of the zombies. He gripped the shaft of his arrow and gritted his teeth before turning his head and yanking. There were no sports stores anymore so getting arrows was more difficult than previously so he couldn’t afford to waste any.
“You go back to Sarah and Dino and get ready to make a run for the fence through any gaps you can…I’ll keep the Zees distracted. Get to safety, the Avengers will let you through when they see you’re people.”
“How will you get back? I can help. Lace and Sarah can get through and I can help you.” Chase felt like he should be doing something more than running away. He had done that enough already. Run from his problems, run from his parents and most recently run from his friends when the zombies attacked.
“I’ll be fine don’t worry.” Hawkeye yanked another arrow and stood to his feet. “You take care of the girl and get to safety,” Clint despite the current situation was still the hero he always tried to be, the role model. The kid and the teen had been through enough and he wanted them to get to safety.
Chase nodded his agreement and with a final thumbs up from Hawkeye as he launched himself over the edge of the ledge Chase began to run the opposite way.
The teen ran down the open track and into the more dense forest without any problems. Any of the zombies which were heading towards their location had yet to reach him.
He fixed his hand on the log which lay across the route and launched his body over. He didn’t stop sprinting. There was some distance he would have to cover. The zombies moved slowly but given enough time he could find himself surrounded.
A small explosion and flash of light from somewhere behind him through the forest let him know that Hawkeye had encountered the zombies somewhere in the woods. He made sure he kept running, swearing all the way for his lack of use in the fight he had just been in.
It didn’t take long until he reached the clearing in which he’d left Old Lace and Sarah and told them to stay. He could sense something was wrong before he even got there. His psychic link with his dinosaur letting him know it was on edge.
He burst through the rows of bushes covering his face with his metal fistigons.
Old Lace stood in the centre of the clearing, her back was bent and she was growling and hissing. Her tail was wrapped around Sarah while his body arched around her trying to keep her surrounded all by herself.
There were five zombies lurching towards them. They seemed only interested in Sarah. It seemed as Chase had assumed giving the wildlife he had seen unmolested that the zombies only seemed to want to eat human flesh.
Chase ran forward. It was easy to get to the two past the zombies which were quite spread out. One lunged at him swinging her arms as he passed her but the area she swung at was already empty.
He seized Sarah and swiftly placed her on Lace’s back. “Get ready to run girl.” He gritted his teeth and tossed out his hands. He could see three of the zombies in front of him. The palms of his hands burst into flames letting him spew out a billowing cloud of fire.
The fire wouldn’t stop the zombies and in the long run just made them that bit more dangerous but while the flame was on them it slowed them down. He moved his arms left and right making sure he got all three of the zombies.
He stopped the flame and turned to his friend before leaping onto her back. “Go!” he clicked his heels against her side and waited for her to spring into action.
She began to run and dodged left past the first zombie which remained. The second lunged towards Chase and Sarah on her back.
Chase kept his head down as Lace dodged past that zombie and dashed forward. She despite the weight on her back effortlessly jumped over large rocks and logs which had fallen over the years. The rough terrain didn’t seem to bother her as her feet padded along.
Zombies were stumbling along the pathway and through the undergrowth seemingly not understanding that it would hinder their progression. They for the most part gave no trouble for Old Lace to thread her way through while Chase sat on her back holding Sarah to his chest tightly.
She let out a roar as three zombies were standing directly in front of her along her path. She skidded to a halt and turned quickly. Her tail swept the legs of the first zombie as she did so. She burst into a sprint in the other direction for a few seconds before skidding and changing direction once again.
Her form exploded down the track before she leapt into the air. Her feet treaded the air and slammed through their heads as she leapt over them. She landed on the other side and continued to run.
The entire journey from the clearing where they had been left to where the forest began to thin out just before the fence of the Avenger’s base took only a couple of minutes.
There was the mass of zombies still around the fence but they had mostly thinned out leaving a thin line four or five zombies thick around the perimeter. Even this had large gaps between bundles and smaller ones between each of the corpses.
“Open the damn fence!” screamed Chase. Lace skidded to a halt. “Open the fence!” He screamed again. Hawkeye said the Avengers would be keeping an eye on the fence to make sure no zombies broke through, the sudden thinning out of zombies would have surely brought more of them out to see what was going on.
The zombies all turned towards Chase and Sarah and began to slowly lurch forward.
A siren blared as the machinery behind the gate began to grind and scream before the gap in the fence slowly became visible. Three zombies stood in the gap which was now opening but they had their backs to it as they lurched towards he living.
Chase slid form Lace’s back. “Get Sarah through, I’ll follow.” The dinosaur would have that bit extra maneuverability with only the small girl on her back. The couple of zombies and the space around them would be easy enough for Chase to manoeuvre around himself.
They both burst forward. Lace moved faster than Chase. The three zombies turned and lunged towards her but she evaded them easily enough and in seconds was through the gap in the fence. She skidded to a halt on that side.
Chase followed. He managed to dodge easily as the zombies had turned to follow Lace and Sarah with their eyes. He was already past them and on the inside of the gate before they even acknowledged her was there. He turned and fired up his gloves as they staggered forward. The gate screeched and began to close.
A ball of energy flew through the gap between the gate and the fence and exploded around one of the zombies who was closest incinerating it’s body but again leaving the head gnashing it’s teeth on the floor.
The gate closed with a ‘Clink’ as the two pieces of metal touched and then sealed with several bolts sealing the zombies off outside with them safe. Chase patted Lace well done on her side and leapt onto her back as she burst into a sprint again across the vast yard of the base towards it’s main building which was built into the large rock structures which rose form the ground.
Chase looked up to the gold glint which was still reflecting the sun high above their heads and above the base.
The door to the base slowly began to open as the three reached it. In the doorway was an imposing group of people.
There was a large black bald man. He glared at the three like they had just beamed down from another planet.
Next to him was a black woman whose Afro even Chase couldn’t begin to conceive, it was just too big to be real. Her arm glinted in the sunlight as it was mechanical like his fistigons, the two guns she had levelled at them were also glinting in the same manner. The third figure was a white woman with long red hair, she was dressed in a white all in one cat suit, she held a long silver blade poised like The Bride from Kill Bill.
“Who the hell are you?” questioned the woman with the two guns which were pointing one at Chase and one at Old Lace. Given the boy had metal flaming hands and a large dinosaur she was showing amazing amounts of restraint.
Chase’s natural instinct to return the question with a sneer was held back with great difficulty. “I’m Chase Stein, this is Sarah and this is Old Lace….Hawkeye sent us. He needs help out there.” Chase leapt from the back of Lace and tried to calm her as she bared her teeth. He was hoping he’d be less imposing when not riding a dinosaur and so as not to get shot.
The woman looked to the man and then at the sword wielding woman. She nodded and lowered the guns, the sword remained poised. “Come with us,” she stepped aside and indicated for the three to head into the corridor first.
“I’m Luke, this is Misty and this is Colleen.” The large man said as he walked next to Chase and gave him a sideways glance. “So Old Lace, like the Capra movie?”
“Could be,” Chase shrugged. “I didn’t name her, it was an old girlfriend…she’s y’know gone” Chase lowered his head for a second. Lace did the same. “Psychic link,” added Chase as he caught Luke giving the dinosaur a worried look.
“I know how you feel, I got a dog once form an old lady in my building. Stood there shouting Fluffy at all hours of the night until it got hit by a bus.”
The small group walked down corridors and halls which were plain grey concrete. They were lit by round orange orb lights sunk into the ceiling and walls. Speakers lined the walls at certain intervals.
They walked the halls for a few minutes, the place was like a rabbit warren and Chase couldn’t guess how many turns he took along the way. There were doorways along the length of the corridor.
Chase turned his head to look down each one. Small groups of people stood inside watching seemingly too afraid to step out into the corridor.
“Refugees from the cities,” informed Colleen. She was walking next to Sarah. The little girl wouldn’t look at her and was keeping a tight hold of Chase as he walked. “We brought them along with us and we’ve been finding more ever since. We need to save as many people as we can…were an endangered species now.”
They continued to walk up until they exited into a larger open area which was full of machinery. There was a large number of the refugees now. They were all dressed in varying styles of clothes, they were dirty and ripped. There were a large number of them who were dressed in oversized overalls which Chase assumed were from the base.
They all watched him. They whispered to one another or averted their eyes as his caught them. They seemed simply astounded by this young man or more likely by his large metal fists and his dinosaur.
His three escorts pushed him forward to another small group who stood in the centre of the refugees. They had a computer console in front of them which was switching from security camera to security camera on the outside of the base.
Chase recognised one of them instantly. He had been part of the West Coast Avengers. He was Hank Pym. The woman next to him was a blonde who was dressed in some yellow jump suit. She had a black band stretched across her hair. A man stood in a dirty shirt and lab coat, his most defining feature was his single arm. The fourth figure was huddled over sitting on the floor. His skin rippled, Chase noticed that the circle around him was even more widespread. He was obsidian black with a large white spider on his chest. His large cavernous mouth was filled with razor sharp teeth and his long tongue licked across his face.
“Good morning,” Henry Pym smiled with a mouthful of brilliantly white teeth. “I’d like to be the first to welcome you. Doctor Connors and myself will of course need to run some tests.”
“Especially on this lovely creature,” Connor’s moved towards Old Lace. She growled causing him to pause. “She’s not just an ordinary dinosaur I take it?” He stepped back.
“Run tests on whatever you want but first what about Hawkeye?” Chase turned to Luke and the others who had guided him here before turning back to Hank Pym who definitely seemed to be in charge here.
Hank looked to Misty. “He says Clint led him here, he’s apparently leading the zombies away.”
“Yes and we have to help him get back…” Chase suddenly broke his sentence and turned his head. Old Lace did so at the same time and sniffed the air before speeding away. The people screamed and parted as she exploded through them.
Venom sniffed equally and bounced forwards. “Where is she going?!” Misty turned to cover Old Lace with her guns looking ready to fire.
Chase burst into a sprint followed by the heroes. “Someone has just arrived…not a zombie.”
Doc Connors leaned over the computer terminal and began to type as the others sped away from him. “How does he know?” asked Hank.
“He’s got some psychic link with the dinosaur,” Luke answered whilst giving chase.
“Fascinating,” mused Hank and Connors at the same time.
The group fled down a few corridors following Old Lace who kept leaving them behind but Venom and Chase seemed to know where they were going.
They turned one corner to find Old Lace standing motionless in the corridor tilting her head from one side to the other.
A small purple lizard flittered around the air above her head puffing big balls of smoke and flame into the air. They were cooing gently to one another.
A group of figures stepped around the corner. Misty levelled her guns towards them.
The hands of three of the figures flew up. Hellion threw up a telekinetic shield between him and the weapons while Sofia began not summon a gust of wind. The third figure tossed up his blue hands and screamed “Nein!”
The X-men had arrived.
To be Continued…
Next Time: The debate over a rescue attempt splinters the newly formed group. Will the rescue Hawkeye?...well of course they’ll try. Will they do it in time or will our favourite archer join the ranks of the un-dead that’s the real question.
Clint Barton edged up the rock face of the cliff. He clung to the rock and grunted as he pulled up with his arms and fixed his hand on another outcropping, he pushed up with his legs powering him that little further.
He gripped the top of the outcrop and hauled himself up. It was only fifteen or twenty feet but he could feel the burn in his arms. He had strong arms and hands from his years as an archer. His fingers held the rock with a vice-like grip each time he found a new handhold.
He had first picked up the bow in his youth when he ran away to join the circus. He had been orphaned and wanted a different life. That’s what he told himself at any rate, in truth he just followed his older brother Barney. They found their new lives under the big top; he found friends and he found family.
He was trained in both archery and swordsmanship by two men who were like fathers to him, Trickshot and Swordsman. When he found out that they were criminals it shook his world.
Clint turned his back on his ‘family’ and went it alone. He decided to make up for their crimes and to make something of himself by becoming a hero. The people he looked up to had betrayed him and so he was going to become someone that others could look up too, someone who wouldn’t let those who looked up to him down.
His plan didn’t go exactly the way he intended as he was branded a criminal, had to fight Iron Man several times and teamed with a soviet superspy who thankfully found her own redemption too.
Next it was Hawkeye who joined The Avengers, The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and despite the indignation of some of it’s founding members at his inclusion he made a name for himself and he made a difference. He became a perennial member of the team, whatever the problem he was there to fight it head on. He became a true hero. He first followed and then led The Avengers in creating two whole new branches the West Coast team and the much derided (and not officially aligned) Great Lake Avengers.
The Avenger’s were more a family to him than anyone was in the past. He found love in the shape of his beautiful wife Bobbi AKA Mockingbird. Within the team he also found people who he would classify as friends until the day he died…like Hercules, Wonderman and Captain America. He didn’t always get along with the man who many consider the face of the Avengers but the more they worked together the more their respect for one another grew. Eventually Clint came to think of Steve like an older brother. They were equals and they were friends. It was with The Avengers Clint found the people he really thought of his family.
Like most families there were the ups and downs, the falling outs and making ups and no one did them more in style than Hawkeye as he helped whip the former villains The Thunderbolts into shape and made them an effective and honest crime fighting team.
Then of course as with most families came the making up and he found himself once again amongst his friends and family being that hero he always tried to be.
Then they came.
Clint always thought The Avengers were a lot like Sherlock Holmes once the Vision had put him onto reading all of Sir Arthur’s work. They don’t go looking for trouble, they don’t patrol like Spider-Man or explore like the Fantastic Four. They sit around and train until something comes to their attention, something others tried to deal with and couldn’t. In the past it was always enough, they always managed to avert the catastrophe. With the zombies it wasn’t the same.
There was a spate of gruesome killings and calls of violence and bizarre attacks over a couple of days which didn’t really seem too odd, especially in New York City. There was the fact that most of the events had the same MO of a savage animal attack complete with the attacker biting their victim. The police were still investigating.
In the world they lived in who knows what could be doing it. Some crazed mutant? Some odd serial attacker? A cult of some kind? The police don’t have a big signal to call in superheroes, they do their job and occasionally a superhero stumbles across the case and helps out in their own special way.
By the time the Avengers knew anything out of the ordinary was happening it had already escalated. Hawkeye clearly remembered what he saw as he piloted the Quinjet over the top of Times Square.
The police were at one side in full on riot gear firing smoke bombs and tear gas into the crowds who were dotted in no organised order on the other side of the famous landmark.
The crowds getting dusted were of all shapes and sizes and weren’t wearing a costume or colourful uniforms like they were used to so it certainly didn’t look like Hydra or AIM or any such thing like that. It looked like a riot of some kind.
The Avengers usually dealt with superhuman events but this still fell into their general aim to protect people and it could still have been something which really needed investigating. Mind control or an empathic attack riling people up?
When Clint began to lower the Quinjet it was Jan who pointed something out. “They’re attacking people!” Clint did a double take and realised she was right. There were people lurching towards the police but it was in no ordered manor or vicious angry rush as you would expect. There were smaller pockets dotted around huddling around someone else…someone screaming in most cases and there were those who were lurching towards other people.
“It’s looks like a Romero film down there,” added Vance AKA Justice. He was one of the newer Avengers. In that sentence he solidified what Clint was thinking as he looked down at the scene. Neither realised how accurate they were.
The Quinjet touched down and the team of Avengers who had been at the mansion when the news report played jumped into action.
Justice and Firestar exploded into the air together. Jan went in the opposite direction to head to the other side of the square. Thor raised his hammer above his head and the clouds above answered him with a rumble. Julia AKA Arachne leapt and fired a blast of web to a building from which to swing…something Tony whipped up for her. She-Hulk and Hawkeye were the last two from their craft and headed directly for the police.
The order of the day was control. These were civilians with no special powers of any kind the Avengers weren’t there to do the police’s job, they just had to calm everything down and contain any threats as best they could.
A few minutes into the action as the heroes tried to corral the men and women or restrain them in any way they could it soon became clear that it would not work. There was no way to knock them down that they wouldn’t get up from.
It was Vance who first made the defining discovery. He flung out his hand to knock back a middle aged black man who had managed to sneak up behind Firestar. It was unbeknownst to them at the time but what was about to happen was due to the advanced and rapid rotting which the Zed heads seemed to undergo, as he knocked him back gently the entire chest cavity of the body exploded out.
Vance went to pieces, as far as he knew he had just killed a man. He had just blown up an innocent man with his powers. He babbled to himself.
He had been in this situation before when he was forced to lash out at his abusive father to save both himself and his mother.
His team mates yelled for his assistance and for him to do something as his powers were one of the most useful in this situation. He was so far lost in his own thoughts that he barely felt the grip around his ankle. He did however feel the teeth dig into his ankle.
Firestar was the next to fall as seemingly forgetting the danger she rushed to her boyfriend’s side and fell prey to the teeth of the same zombie. They both fell to the ground quickly and began to writhe in pain.
“These poor folk doth carry some dire disease,” warned Thor as he grabbed the back of the man’s shirt and hauled him backwards away from the two teenage team members. His hand pressed firmly on their foreheads. “They burn like fire,” he confirmed to Hawkeye who had dashed to the side of his team mates. Thor had all the memories of his human alter-ego Doctor Donald Blake. “Carried in the bite,” he nodded to himself.
Clint bit his lower lip. “They’re really zombies,” his eyes flicked up and began to notice the small portions of skin flaking away and tears across the flesh of the people his friends were fighting. “Don’t let them bite you…protect the police!” Clint ordered. It was a difficult decision but he had to make it, the Avengers would now shift from simply corralling and separating the people into actively trying to protect the police from the zombies.
The rest of the battle didn’t go well from there. The streets were swarming with the beasts. The tunnels off of the island were clogged with cars and all it took was one or two infected people before the virus swept back.
Hundreds of more zombies were being created across the city every minute and they were flooding out from where they were searching for meat. The Avengers and the police battled valiantly against the monsters but more and more kept coming.
The Avengers all fell rather rapidly once the line of cars and police was broken. Jan, Jen and Juliet all fell in the matter of a couple of minutes from each other as well as a precinct full of police officers as they became overrun. All the while the writhing agony of the two mutants on the team screaming in pain from whatever the infection was doing to them pierced their hearing above the low but loud growling and moaning of the undead. They had yet to see anyone turn into a zombie but by their sheer number and the speed they were arriving Thor was beginning to theorise that the mutants genes were changing the process and drawing it out more than it was to normal humans.
Only Hawkeye and the god of thunder remained standing. They stood back to back atop a police car. Thor was discharging blasts of electricity from his hammer which sundered through the corpses as they clawed towards them. Hawkeye was firing off his arrows through the heads of the monsters as best he could.
“I think this one is over Thor, we need to fall back to another location…call in the others and the military.” Clint gritted his teeth as he spoke. He hated the idea of cutting and running but the fact was this battle was lost and he had to admit it.
“Aye, I doth agree archer…” Thor turned his head to Hawkeye and then out into the sea of zombies as he fired another blast of energy. “You gather the troops. I shall see to our comrades.”
“They’re a lost cause,” Clint flinched as he realised what he just said. He had written off these two teenagers who were in pain and were supposed to be his team mates. “We’ll get them together…maybe they can be helped, they’re fighting it so far.”
“Aye, maybe so…I’ve yet to see any such thing in humans.” Thor turned to face Hawkeye and stopped shooting his bolts of power.
“We’ve yet to see anything of gods either,” Clint fired and arrow and then turned his head to face Thor. The magic metal of his hammer streaked down and slammed into his shoulder.
“Tis a chance we will have to take. Farewell my friend and I shall hope to see you in time.”
“NO!” Clint began to scream to his friend and team mate but his yell was lost. It echoed down the hall of Avenger’s mansion.
Clint shuddered as he moved forward on the edge of the outcrop and peered from behind a tree at the mass of zombies below him which stretched to the fencing around the base. There were a few hundred no doubt from the town nearby who had just wandered off into the woods.
He briefly thought of the few days after that event. How long it took him to pick his way through the remnants of the city and back to the Quinjet without finding any survivors but the Zed heads before he took to the sky. It seemed the entire city’s population was turned in a matter of hours, all cramped in on the tiny island. He and some of the survivors he and some of the other Avengers who he later found had managed to find set up home in the abandoned military base they had found and he now found that under siege and being threatened to be taken away from him.
~SNAP~
Hawkeye turned on a dime and yanked an arrow free of the quiver on his back. It was loaded into the arrow and pulled taut in roughly a second.
Chase screamed and hit the floor. Clint lowered the bow. “Will you stop trying to kill me with arrows!” screamed Chase from where he crouched. His head was pulled into the floor with his metal gloves pressed hard behind his neck.
“You startled me I thought you were one of the zombies.”
“You said that last time…a guy could develop a complex. Is it the personal hygiene thing?” Chase rubbed his hands under his pits before he realised he was wearing metal gauntlets and couldn’t feel anything.
Hawkeye looked at Chase carefully. He couldn’t help but think they were a lot a like. He had only known the kid for about an hour but had already managed to pick up so much about him. He was a cocky kid who liked to hide his intelligence as best he could…he was very good at it. He never really fit in with his family and then found out they were actually quite evil. He set out to make up for everything they had done much like Clint had. He was brave and had already managed to become some sort of guardian for a child he had found who had obviously bonded to him very quickly. Chase was pretty much in the place in his life Clint had been when he joined the Avengers. He needed a guiding hand like Cap had been to him.
“I thought I was alone, you snapped the twig and it startled me.”
“Just what I need a trigger happy archer…a string happy archer? Anyway I thought that twig thing just happened in movies,” Chase shrugged away the thought as quickly as it came into his head. “So why aren’t your friends dealing with the zombies if it’s so important to keep them away from the fence?”
“They’re probably preparing to, they need to get rid of them before enough arrive to tip over the fence but that’ll take a while…we need them gone right away so we can get in.”
“So what’s the plan?” Chase moved closer to Clint and peered over his shoulder down at the horde of amassed zombies below them. They were mostly in the clear around the fence but their numbers did stretch beyond the wooded lining around it interspersing some of them behind bushes and trees. The outcrop looked down on all of this.
“The plan was for you to stay with Sarah and keep her safe while I recon…what makes you think you can follow a battle plan any better.” Hawkeye shook his head. Chase unfortunately reminded him a little too much of himself especially it seemed when it came to taking orders.
“She’s fine with Old Lace. She’ll know when a zombie is coming up quicker than I would and she can move faster than I can….she’s a regular Road Runner to my Droopy.”
“How did you get here anyway?” Hawkeye had been scrambling over rocks and climbed a sheer cliff face to get to this point and yet Chase had managed to get here completely negating the head start Clint had.
“There’s a trail right up here, easy going all the way…how’d you get here?” Chase thumbed behind him.
Hawkeye felt like kicking himself as he glanced behind Chase. He stood up sharply and slid his bow along his arm before removing an arrow from his quiver again. “That smart ass comment about Droopy, I hope you were kidding.” Hawkeye nodded behind Chase.
The blond teen turned and let out a yelp before leaping backwards. A horde of the zombies were staggering up the trail.
There were ten to fifteen of the undead. Their skin was greying and splitting as they shuffled forward revealing a darker tone beneath which still had a pink colouring. There clothing was ripped and stained with old blood and dirt. Several had whole pieces of clothing missing. Several months of constant activity without changing their clothing had left it in tatters and only held together by the dirt pitted across it. Their bodies were fairing just as well, they didn’t seem to have any sort of ability to heal so the constant wear and tear was taking it’s toll.
“Keep calm and keep moving,” Hawkeye unleashed his first arrow as he spoke. The purple shaft hurtled through the air and glanced the side of one of the zombies heads sending pieces of his head flying backwards.
Chase nodded. He lowered his head and stared at his hands. The metal fistigons sparked to life as fire exploded from them for a split second. “I need to concentrate, make it solid…fire just makes these things worse.”
Making solid fire is not an easy thing to do, to most it’s inconceivable to even imagine. Fire is a ‘fluid’ release of energy and most people couldn’t even get their minds around the concept of solid fire. Chase Stein wasn’t one of them, he didn’t have his parents intelligence which would allow him to engineer a device to do such a thing but there were very few things his mind couldn’t imagine. It was just a matter of keeping his mind solely locked on one image which was difficult enough without the corpses which were stumbling towards them.
Clint moved forward and turned his upper body. He fired the arrow from his bow. It arced up into the air and came down in the centre of the zombies before letting out a bright flash. The strength knocked the zombies in front forward and those just behind backwards causing several to stumble to the floor. The explosion managed to blow a huge hole in the head of one of the beasts sending it’s grey matter splattering across his ‘friends’ she slumped forward.
He acted quickly launching several more arrows in quick succession. They soared through the heads of some of the zombies. Two fell as the arrows pierced their brains, two others he hit merely had the arrow sink into their skulls. The portion of their brain or the percentage which needed to be destroyed to kill them hadn’t been.
The arrows of the archer were coming fast and furious as he moved from target to target. He sidestepped left and right as he constantly re-angled his shots to get zombies which were obscured by another or to retry a shot at a zombie whose brain wasn’t destroyed as his arrow penetrated.
Chase grunted behind him, a shaft of flaming energy shot closely past the head of Clint causing him to dodge sideways. The energy exploded through the shoulder of one of the zombies obliterating the bones and muscles causing his arm to drop to the floor. The chest of the zombie behind it exploded backwards out through his back causing the still gnashing head of the monster to tumble and bounce to the ground.
“You were a little close with that one,” Hawkeye warned as he shifted again and fired another volley of arrows. Chase moved in the opposite direction and threw out his hands.
Two large balls of solid flaming energy shot forward one from each glove. They were easier to form than the concentrated shaft so with his concentration broken from the attack and his near miss with Hawkeye they were formed. It could have been worse and simply been a simple blast of flame which would not have made this any easier but rather would have made them more dangerous.
The first ball blasted away one of the zombie’s legs while the second span off into nowhere. The zombie with now only one legs stumbled forward, it’s remaining leg hopping to find purchase and regain balance but it’s slow addled brain going to slowly for it to realise it was useless. It had the effect of it leaping forward towards the two heroes.
Hawkeye launched himself back as it fell to his feet and quickly fired an arrow into the zombie’s head stopping it squirming at his feet. “You really need to work on your aim.”
“You potty train a dinosaur and then I’ll let you mouth off at me about my lack of archery skill,” Chase growled. He launched his hand forward unleashing another blast. This one hit home and blew the head clean of one of the zombies.
Clint fired a couple of more shots, each one hit home perfectly felling the zombie he aimed for. He breathed out slowly and then in as he tried to regulate his breathing. The battle seemed to be over for now.
He lowered his bow and moved quickly behind Chase. “They’re breaking apart, looks like we got their attention.” Hawkeye moved back past Chase who was moving to the edge to look down.
The zombie brigade below were indeed breaking apart. The majority were still hanging around the fence but there were large clumps who seemed to be turning away from the base and stumbling haphazardly into the forest drawn by the noise or the lights of their fight.
Chase turned back to Hawkeye who was crouching over some of the zombies. He gripped the shaft of his arrow and gritted his teeth before turning his head and yanking. There were no sports stores anymore so getting arrows was more difficult than previously so he couldn’t afford to waste any.
“You go back to Sarah and Dino and get ready to make a run for the fence through any gaps you can…I’ll keep the Zees distracted. Get to safety, the Avengers will let you through when they see you’re people.”
“How will you get back? I can help. Lace and Sarah can get through and I can help you.” Chase felt like he should be doing something more than running away. He had done that enough already. Run from his problems, run from his parents and most recently run from his friends when the zombies attacked.
“I’ll be fine don’t worry.” Hawkeye yanked another arrow and stood to his feet. “You take care of the girl and get to safety,” Clint despite the current situation was still the hero he always tried to be, the role model. The kid and the teen had been through enough and he wanted them to get to safety.
Chase nodded his agreement and with a final thumbs up from Hawkeye as he launched himself over the edge of the ledge Chase began to run the opposite way.
The teen ran down the open track and into the more dense forest without any problems. Any of the zombies which were heading towards their location had yet to reach him.
He fixed his hand on the log which lay across the route and launched his body over. He didn’t stop sprinting. There was some distance he would have to cover. The zombies moved slowly but given enough time he could find himself surrounded.
A small explosion and flash of light from somewhere behind him through the forest let him know that Hawkeye had encountered the zombies somewhere in the woods. He made sure he kept running, swearing all the way for his lack of use in the fight he had just been in.
It didn’t take long until he reached the clearing in which he’d left Old Lace and Sarah and told them to stay. He could sense something was wrong before he even got there. His psychic link with his dinosaur letting him know it was on edge.
He burst through the rows of bushes covering his face with his metal fistigons.
Old Lace stood in the centre of the clearing, her back was bent and she was growling and hissing. Her tail was wrapped around Sarah while his body arched around her trying to keep her surrounded all by herself.
There were five zombies lurching towards them. They seemed only interested in Sarah. It seemed as Chase had assumed giving the wildlife he had seen unmolested that the zombies only seemed to want to eat human flesh.
Chase ran forward. It was easy to get to the two past the zombies which were quite spread out. One lunged at him swinging her arms as he passed her but the area she swung at was already empty.
He seized Sarah and swiftly placed her on Lace’s back. “Get ready to run girl.” He gritted his teeth and tossed out his hands. He could see three of the zombies in front of him. The palms of his hands burst into flames letting him spew out a billowing cloud of fire.
The fire wouldn’t stop the zombies and in the long run just made them that bit more dangerous but while the flame was on them it slowed them down. He moved his arms left and right making sure he got all three of the zombies.
He stopped the flame and turned to his friend before leaping onto her back. “Go!” he clicked his heels against her side and waited for her to spring into action.
She began to run and dodged left past the first zombie which remained. The second lunged towards Chase and Sarah on her back.
Chase kept his head down as Lace dodged past that zombie and dashed forward. She despite the weight on her back effortlessly jumped over large rocks and logs which had fallen over the years. The rough terrain didn’t seem to bother her as her feet padded along.
Zombies were stumbling along the pathway and through the undergrowth seemingly not understanding that it would hinder their progression. They for the most part gave no trouble for Old Lace to thread her way through while Chase sat on her back holding Sarah to his chest tightly.
She let out a roar as three zombies were standing directly in front of her along her path. She skidded to a halt and turned quickly. Her tail swept the legs of the first zombie as she did so. She burst into a sprint in the other direction for a few seconds before skidding and changing direction once again.
Her form exploded down the track before she leapt into the air. Her feet treaded the air and slammed through their heads as she leapt over them. She landed on the other side and continued to run.
The entire journey from the clearing where they had been left to where the forest began to thin out just before the fence of the Avenger’s base took only a couple of minutes.
There was the mass of zombies still around the fence but they had mostly thinned out leaving a thin line four or five zombies thick around the perimeter. Even this had large gaps between bundles and smaller ones between each of the corpses.
“Open the damn fence!” screamed Chase. Lace skidded to a halt. “Open the fence!” He screamed again. Hawkeye said the Avengers would be keeping an eye on the fence to make sure no zombies broke through, the sudden thinning out of zombies would have surely brought more of them out to see what was going on.
The zombies all turned towards Chase and Sarah and began to slowly lurch forward.
A siren blared as the machinery behind the gate began to grind and scream before the gap in the fence slowly became visible. Three zombies stood in the gap which was now opening but they had their backs to it as they lurched towards he living.
Chase slid form Lace’s back. “Get Sarah through, I’ll follow.” The dinosaur would have that bit extra maneuverability with only the small girl on her back. The couple of zombies and the space around them would be easy enough for Chase to manoeuvre around himself.
They both burst forward. Lace moved faster than Chase. The three zombies turned and lunged towards her but she evaded them easily enough and in seconds was through the gap in the fence. She skidded to a halt on that side.
Chase followed. He managed to dodge easily as the zombies had turned to follow Lace and Sarah with their eyes. He was already past them and on the inside of the gate before they even acknowledged her was there. He turned and fired up his gloves as they staggered forward. The gate screeched and began to close.
A ball of energy flew through the gap between the gate and the fence and exploded around one of the zombies who was closest incinerating it’s body but again leaving the head gnashing it’s teeth on the floor.
The gate closed with a ‘Clink’ as the two pieces of metal touched and then sealed with several bolts sealing the zombies off outside with them safe. Chase patted Lace well done on her side and leapt onto her back as she burst into a sprint again across the vast yard of the base towards it’s main building which was built into the large rock structures which rose form the ground.
Chase looked up to the gold glint which was still reflecting the sun high above their heads and above the base.
The door to the base slowly began to open as the three reached it. In the doorway was an imposing group of people.
There was a large black bald man. He glared at the three like they had just beamed down from another planet.
Next to him was a black woman whose Afro even Chase couldn’t begin to conceive, it was just too big to be real. Her arm glinted in the sunlight as it was mechanical like his fistigons, the two guns she had levelled at them were also glinting in the same manner. The third figure was a white woman with long red hair, she was dressed in a white all in one cat suit, she held a long silver blade poised like The Bride from Kill Bill.
“Who the hell are you?” questioned the woman with the two guns which were pointing one at Chase and one at Old Lace. Given the boy had metal flaming hands and a large dinosaur she was showing amazing amounts of restraint.
Chase’s natural instinct to return the question with a sneer was held back with great difficulty. “I’m Chase Stein, this is Sarah and this is Old Lace….Hawkeye sent us. He needs help out there.” Chase leapt from the back of Lace and tried to calm her as she bared her teeth. He was hoping he’d be less imposing when not riding a dinosaur and so as not to get shot.
The woman looked to the man and then at the sword wielding woman. She nodded and lowered the guns, the sword remained poised. “Come with us,” she stepped aside and indicated for the three to head into the corridor first.
“I’m Luke, this is Misty and this is Colleen.” The large man said as he walked next to Chase and gave him a sideways glance. “So Old Lace, like the Capra movie?”
“Could be,” Chase shrugged. “I didn’t name her, it was an old girlfriend…she’s y’know gone” Chase lowered his head for a second. Lace did the same. “Psychic link,” added Chase as he caught Luke giving the dinosaur a worried look.
“I know how you feel, I got a dog once form an old lady in my building. Stood there shouting Fluffy at all hours of the night until it got hit by a bus.”
The small group walked down corridors and halls which were plain grey concrete. They were lit by round orange orb lights sunk into the ceiling and walls. Speakers lined the walls at certain intervals.
They walked the halls for a few minutes, the place was like a rabbit warren and Chase couldn’t guess how many turns he took along the way. There were doorways along the length of the corridor.
Chase turned his head to look down each one. Small groups of people stood inside watching seemingly too afraid to step out into the corridor.
“Refugees from the cities,” informed Colleen. She was walking next to Sarah. The little girl wouldn’t look at her and was keeping a tight hold of Chase as he walked. “We brought them along with us and we’ve been finding more ever since. We need to save as many people as we can…were an endangered species now.”
They continued to walk up until they exited into a larger open area which was full of machinery. There was a large number of the refugees now. They were all dressed in varying styles of clothes, they were dirty and ripped. There were a large number of them who were dressed in oversized overalls which Chase assumed were from the base.
They all watched him. They whispered to one another or averted their eyes as his caught them. They seemed simply astounded by this young man or more likely by his large metal fists and his dinosaur.
His three escorts pushed him forward to another small group who stood in the centre of the refugees. They had a computer console in front of them which was switching from security camera to security camera on the outside of the base.
Chase recognised one of them instantly. He had been part of the West Coast Avengers. He was Hank Pym. The woman next to him was a blonde who was dressed in some yellow jump suit. She had a black band stretched across her hair. A man stood in a dirty shirt and lab coat, his most defining feature was his single arm. The fourth figure was huddled over sitting on the floor. His skin rippled, Chase noticed that the circle around him was even more widespread. He was obsidian black with a large white spider on his chest. His large cavernous mouth was filled with razor sharp teeth and his long tongue licked across his face.
“Good morning,” Henry Pym smiled with a mouthful of brilliantly white teeth. “I’d like to be the first to welcome you. Doctor Connors and myself will of course need to run some tests.”
“Especially on this lovely creature,” Connor’s moved towards Old Lace. She growled causing him to pause. “She’s not just an ordinary dinosaur I take it?” He stepped back.
“Run tests on whatever you want but first what about Hawkeye?” Chase turned to Luke and the others who had guided him here before turning back to Hank Pym who definitely seemed to be in charge here.
Hank looked to Misty. “He says Clint led him here, he’s apparently leading the zombies away.”
“Yes and we have to help him get back…” Chase suddenly broke his sentence and turned his head. Old Lace did so at the same time and sniffed the air before speeding away. The people screamed and parted as she exploded through them.
Venom sniffed equally and bounced forwards. “Where is she going?!” Misty turned to cover Old Lace with her guns looking ready to fire.
Chase burst into a sprint followed by the heroes. “Someone has just arrived…not a zombie.”
Doc Connors leaned over the computer terminal and began to type as the others sped away from him. “How does he know?” asked Hank.
“He’s got some psychic link with the dinosaur,” Luke answered whilst giving chase.
“Fascinating,” mused Hank and Connors at the same time.
The group fled down a few corridors following Old Lace who kept leaving them behind but Venom and Chase seemed to know where they were going.
They turned one corner to find Old Lace standing motionless in the corridor tilting her head from one side to the other.
A small purple lizard flittered around the air above her head puffing big balls of smoke and flame into the air. They were cooing gently to one another.
A group of figures stepped around the corner. Misty levelled her guns towards them.
The hands of three of the figures flew up. Hellion threw up a telekinetic shield between him and the weapons while Sofia began not summon a gust of wind. The third figure tossed up his blue hands and screamed “Nein!”
The X-men had arrived.
To be Continued…
Next Time: The debate over a rescue attempt splinters the newly formed group. Will the rescue Hawkeye?...well of course they’ll try. Will they do it in time or will our favourite archer join the ranks of the un-dead that’s the real question.