Silverfire - Chapter 31 (Patreon)

Chapter 31 – Taming

[2012 – August]

*BOOM*

The moment Barton's arrow exploded and sabotaged one of the four turbines, was the signal for them to act.

Wanda had felt Barton's mental presence approaching the Helicarrier already, so when he had set off the explosion, she was already outside the lab where the scepter had been kept. A red mist-like barrier protecting her and Silver from the explosion and the resulting shockwave.

Her barrier also concealed her from the view of Stark, Rogers and Fury, who rushed out of the room only a short moment after.

Entering, she spotted the scepter lying on the floor. Using her telekinesis she pulled it towards herself and took hold of it.

As much as she would like to experiment with the scepter, Wanda could feel a few hostile presences approach the lab. Turning towards them, as they entered the room and were about to shot at her, she simply used her telekinesis to break their necks.

'I got the scepter.', she signalled Pietro mentally, as Silver and her walked towards the deck of the ship, with Silver manipulating all the cameras on their way, making them practically invisible.

…

Hearing Wanda's message, made a small smile appear on my lips, as I approached a struggling Romanoff, and Bruce, who was already changing colour.

Engaging my Superspeed, I simply grabbed Banner by the throat and brought him to a exterior wall nearby. Exerting my full strength, I easily threw him through the hull and consequently overboard. And as he sailed through the air, I noticed him fully changing into the Hulk and screaming in rage.

Not bothering with him anymore, I turned around and moved towards Loki's cell, still using my Superspeed.

Natasha would find a way to free herself eventually, and I didn't care enough to help her honestly.

On my way to the detention level, I came across Thor and a few of the hired mercernaries that Barton had brought with him, who were heading in the same direction.

Speeding up a bit, I arrived at the cell a moment later, before them.

“Ahh, Earth's Strongest. Weren't you supposed to reign in the green beast, as Fury's little attack dog?”, Loki commented the moment he saw me, obviously trying to rile me up.

But he couldn't fool me, as I clearly saw the worry in his eyes. He knew that with me here, he had no chance of escaping his cell.

I didn't bother answering him, as I apporached the control panel to his cell.

Pushing the button that opened the hatch, Loki's worry grew into panic as he yelled: “What are you doing?! Cease your actions this instant, mortal!”

As I turned towards him, three men in combat gear entered the room. The aimed their weapons at me and were about to shoot, though I simple used my Superspeed again.

Summoning my daggers, I threw them at two of them, while I apporached the last one myself. Channeling my inner fire into my arm, I simply pierced through the last attacker's heart with my bare hand.

The extreme heat from my hand, easily allowing me to bypass his gear and protection vest.

The other two hostiles were already down, my daggers having pierced through their helmets easily enough.

Moving back to the control panel, I prompted my daggers to turn back into bracelets mentally.

I could do that from every distance, which meant that my weapons were excellent for throwing at opponents, though I did that rarely, as I normally prefered a different fighting style.

As Thor burst into the room, he interrupted my idle thoughts. Looking at me standing in front of the control panel and the opened hatch, he asked, frowning deeply: “What is the meaning of this, human?”

His posture making it clear that he was ready to pounce on me anytime.

“I am sure you would survive a fall from this height, Asgard's Strongest. Your brother here, on the other hand, might not be so lucky, so you better save him.”, I said calmly, while pushing the release button.

“NO!”, Thor screamed, as he attemted to a jump on me.

Well, Thor might be fast, but not faster than me.

I simply used my Superspeed to dive after Loki, moving through the air with my hands and feet shooting out highly-concentrated bursts of fire. My speed was nearly equal my top-speed like that, though I could only do this for a short time, as it required great focus and concentration.

It took me less than a second to move around the ship and land on the deck of the Helicarrier in a burst of blue fire, Wanda and Silver already waiting there for me.

It would take a few minutes for Thor to get Loki back to the Helicarrier, after he rescued him from falling to his death. Well, that was if he wasn't tricked by him again, after he rescued him.

Either way, that meant that for the next few minutes there was no one that could interfere.

“Let's go.”, I said to Wanda and Silver, as I placed my hand on Wanda's shoulder, while holding Silver's hand tightly with my free hand.

Watching Wanda closing her eyes in concentration, it took her a moment to gather her focus, before a burst of her red energy surrounded the three of us in a cocoon of magical energy.

The next moment we vanished from the Helicarrier.

…

Watching through the glass front, as the three Maximoffs vanished in a swirl of red energy, with Wanda Maximoff carrying the scepter, Fury knew that he had made a mistake in asking them for help against Loki.

He didn't know what exactly had happened, but apparently Pietro Maximoff had not only thrown the Hulk overboard, but also released Loki's cell, which caused Thor to dive after it in an attempt to save his brother.

Before Fury could try and make any sense of the situation, he got dragged back into the present by the constant assaults on his command center by the disguised combatants.

He only hoped that as soon as this was all over, his lapse in judgement with the Maximoffs wouldn't cause more damage, than Loki's appearance already had.

…

Appearing back in New York City, on the roof of the house we had lived in last year, I took a moment to refocus.

Wanda's ability to teleport us, had been the core of this whole plan and it was something she had worked on for the last half a year.

Without it, this whole enterprise to aquire the Mind and Space Stone, would have been a bit more complicated.

But with it? Well, while the 'Avengers' where still trying to gather again, we will long since have vanished again.

“I am going first. Be quick, when you follow me. We better leave as soon as we can.”

I had no interest in fighting the Avengers, if I could avoid them, until I had gotten hold of the Space Stone.

Sure, I could probably kill them all, but why would I bother doing that? I had nothing to prove, so why would I care about them?

Taking off with a jump, I used my flames again to maneuver with incredible speed through the air. A bit slower this time, but it still only took me a few seconds to reach the roof of the STARK tower.

I could see Eric Selvig and a few others setting up the machine that was supposed to open a portal for the Chitauri.

A quick burst of Superspeed and they were all unconciously laying on the floor.

Taking the silver briefcase, I set it down and opened it right there. An etheral blue glow greeting me, as I did so.

The Tesseract.

I didn't dare to just pick up the Tesseract, even though I was confident that I could hold it without repercussions, as there was really no point in taking such a risk.

A few moments later Wanda and Silver landed next to me.

“Are you sure about this?”, Wanda asked concerned, knowing what I wanted her to do next.

Nodding at her, she took a deep breath while closing her eyes for a moment. Opening them again, she used her telekinesis to grab the cube and levitated it into the air.

Standing up and summoning one of my daggers, I waited for her to destroy the cube and reveal the stone.

I wasn't sure my physical strength was enough to do something like that, because while I could lift nearly 30 tons, the cube was a cosmic object of infinite power.

Pressing down on the cube with her telekinetic powers, Wanda exerted her full force to destroy the cube.

At first nothing happened, but after a couple of minutes, small cracks started to appear on the cube, when suddenly the cube just bursted into shards. A blue wave of energy washing over us, but doing no harm to our superpowered bodies.

What was left behind in the cube's destruction, was a beautiful blue-glowing gem – the Space Stone.

I didn't hestitate anymore, as I apporached the floating stone and lifted my dagger. Holding it horizontally, directly beneath the Gem. One could see a small cavity, where the stone now floated above the blade.

This was the last ability of my weapon, the ability to house two Infinity Stones - one per dagger. Not only that, but they would seal away the stones power and release it on my mental commands, meaning I could slowly adapt to the power of the stone, even if I couldn't wield it all, at the moment.

It was a safety net in case I overestimated my current strength and wasn't able to handle the stone's infinite power.

Giving Wanda a short nod, she hestitated for a moment, before letting the stone drop into the small cavity.

The moment the stone touched the blade, I could feel its energy seeping into my indestructible weapon and into my own body.

The energy was so immense that I dropped to one knee, temporarly losing my strength to stand.

And the pain was even worse, as the blue energy coursed through every cell of my body, practically tearing them apart. My healing factor working overtime to repair the damage it caused, as the heat around myself began to rise steadily.

Wanda had already levitated the unconcious peolple on the roof down onto the terrace of the tower and erected a barrier to shield the surroundings from my heat.

I knew I could just command the dagger to seal up the stone's power and try to adapt to it slowly, but I felt instinctively that doing so would be a mistake.

The Infinity Stones were sentient and right now the Space Stone was judging and testing me, seeing if I was worthy to wield its power.

So I endured. Swallowing down my screams of pain and gathering my whole focus on trying to reign in the rampaging power of the Space Stone.

At some point my whole body was simply throbbing in pain, being destroyed and reforged in reponse to the immense power of the stone working in conjunction with Extremis.

But I could feel it, my body was adapting.

Each time my cells regenerated after the cosmic energy from the stone destroyed them, I could feel myself being more attuned to the cosmic energy. Still, the pain didn't vanish and the pressure from the infinite energy contained in the stone was still pressing down on my whole being.

No matter how much I adapted, I still felt like an ant trying to lift a mountain. It felt like I was burning from the inside, even with my incredible resistance to heat. And as I had reached the point, where I was sure I couldn't prersevere any longer, the immense internal pressure the stone exerted onto me simply vanished.

A gentle blue wave of energy being emitted from my body, as the stone's glow dimmed down and a connection was suddenly formed between the Infinity Stone and myself.

I had succeeded in taming an Infinity Stone.