A Mutant And A Dragon Walk Into A Bar . . .

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Luna wanted to get back in on the action. The vigilante thing wasn’t exactly a new thing for us. We used to do it a little back in university, just small time stuff: calling cabs for the girl who needed to get away from a pushy guy, roughing up said guy for trying to take advantage; stopping a few muggings, you know, nothing major. At the time, it was more for fun than anything else, we’d created ‘costumes’ and we were trying out the anti-surveillance bracelets I’d coded. But we hadn’t done it in years, it didn’t align with our plan to keep a low profile, so we’d put the costumes away and by and large, we’d forgotten about it. It became little more than an inside joke, now that we were, to all intents and purposes, productive members of adult society.

I tried explaining this to her, that we were done, we’d rescued the Avengers for laughs and as a smoke screen. While the focus was on the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four, people like she and I could fly under the radar, that there would be less focus on us. That I wasn’t letting S.H.I.E.L.D. or that entitled prick, Xavier anywhere near us.

Luna wavered, but the pull was too strong, I could feel it. Once more, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. Luna’s a Dreki, it was in their blood. Dreki warriors have been protectors of humanity, guardians of justice for millennium. All those old statues and paintings of dragons? Yep, her family, as real as anything. Was it any wonder that she rebelled? Ran off to university where, happily enough she ran into me. Out first conversation included her saying, “I’m evil,” to which my was response of “Hi Evil, I’m The Bitch,” and we were sold, we’ve been friends ever since.

Fortunately, as the world started to go to hell in a handbasket, the Avengers were formed. Dreki don’t step in unless things were about ready to get really ugly. (Which should be obvious, I mean, when was the last time you saw a dragon in real life?), but the world was at about that point, and she’d been ready—if a little unwilling—to step up to the plate. But she’d never had to, not on any large scale.

And then we rescued the Avengers. She’d gotten a taste for the adrenaline, taking down the bad guys and riding off into the proverbial sunset while the dramatic music played. If Luna wasn’t my best friend, I’d have gone to ground years and years ago, never poked my head up from the sand, but here I was, in too deep. Story of my life.

No matter how many different scenarios I played out in my head, they all led to the eventual conclusion of discovery. All my years of work to keep our heads down and I blew it in one grandiose gesture, just to make a point. There was no going back from this, there was only forward.

“Rin,” Luna said quietly, stepping out onto the balcony. Dreki were empathic, and I read as null, which made our friendship even more practical, but she was obviously getting some kind of read off me. I turned my head slightly, looking at her through the curtain of my hair. What was there to say—she was going with or without me. Considering the undertones of a D/s relationship in our friendship, I might be able to push for her compliance to my preferences, but that would do irreparable damage to our friendship. I could almost guarantee that she’d go anyway if I chose that disastrous option.

If I said I wasn’t going, or couldn’t go, Luna would understand. Being on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s radar was akin to being on a terrorist watch list, and I don’t trust S.H.I.E.L.D. to be the proverbial guardian of the world, staring at all of us who were different like we’re ticking time bombs about to go off. Or worse, dragged off for experimentation or forced into work ‘for the good of the world’, without any freedom or choice in the matter—very few things terrified me as much as the very possibility as the aforementioned. But that left me with an impossible choice: go or stay. To leave Luna to fend for herself and still likely be discovered anyway; staring at my friend, still standing there, practically vibrating out of her skin with her eagerness, yet still waiting for me, hoping that I’ll stand by as I have so many times before—what choice was there? We’ve been through too much for me to say I was done; running away wasn’t an option any more. Maybe it never was.

“If this is to end in fire, we shall all burn together,” I muttered to myself as I rose from my seat.

“What was that?” Luna asked distractedly. My rising was all the confirmation needed and so she was racing around to get the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign and what not so our room wouldn’t be bothered while we were back in Manhattan.

“Nothing, darling. Let’s go; we’ll need to get out the old costumes before we hang out with superheroes.”

My last thought before Luna took us back was, Please don’t let us be discovered..

***

Ten minutes later, we popped up on a Manhattan rooftop and were nearly skewered via an arrow. Each. (Damn, that man’s reaction time, I wish there was a way to properly describe the appreciative noise that I would have made under any other circumstances). Each of us stopped our respective arrow, Luna used magic and actually caught hers physically, the showoff, I had to content myself with stopping mine midair, about three inches from my throat. And because sarcasm was my (well, our) native tongue, what came out of my mouth was, “Oops, sorry, birdboy, didn’t realize this perch was taken. Exit rooftop nest left.” And then in sync, Luna and I threw ourselves over the edge and vanished from sight.

We reappeared about four blocks down on a different and thankfully empty rooftop, and started giggling like maniacs. That was so quintessentially us, either our timing was perfect or oh so wrong. We must have given poor Hawkeye quite the shock, the look on his face as we appeared, sassed, and then disappeared. We’re both dressed in head to toe black, from the leather of our boots to the body armor to the cowl-mask combination on our faces and hair. The masks were reminiscent of the mask the Phantom of the Opera wore, just larger, the only bit of our faces showing was a cutout running from just in line with one earlobe, just below the comm implant, to the bridge of our noses where it then cut down our faces, bisecting our lips where it rejoined with the covering over our necks. Less than a quarter of our faces were visible and the poor guy must have thought we were with the aliens they were fighting.

Which wasn’t an entirely inaccurate assessment we soon learned as one such creature, basically a black-shelled humanoid looking thing dangling down from the extremely large spider-thing as a head crawled over the surface of the building across the street. “The hell . . .?” Luna said, peering over the rooftop at the infestation of creatures crawling all over Lower Manhattan.

Everywhere we looked, it was chaos; hundreds of spider things at least fifteen feet tall crawling over buildings, webs made of some kind of acid were hanging everywhere, melting through cars and buildings—from where we were we couldn’t see what kind of damage those things could do to people, but honestly, I’m pretty sure we didn’t want to know—and some kind of translucent ‘ship’ if you could call it that, dominated the horizon. The crunching of metal and the booms of thunder filled the air as Thor and the Hulk kept trying to bring down the ship, more or less ineffectually. That left the Iron Dude and Falcon to patrol the skies, repulsors, explosions, and lasers, oh my!

From our rooftop we could see the glint of the Winter Soldier’s arm and the quickly moving speck that was Hawkeye sniping as many of the creatures as they could and the occasional flash of green as Loki’s magic did its thing. That left Captain America and the Black Widow on the ground, trying to both fight and coordinate an evacuation of the people in the nearby buildings towards the police perimeter more than four more blocks down from where we were. Loki and Falcon kept dropping in to help them out, but they had their own responsibilities.

It was no longer a laughing matter and Luna and I both knew it. “They’ll never make it,” Luna said quietly, staring down at the madness below.

“Well, if help should conveniently, oh, I don’t know, fall from the sky, they’ll be alright,” I replied, and the look that Luna shot me should have stung, so much incredulity and shock packed into the couple square inches of her face I could see. She assumed I’d had second thoughts about stepping in. “Don’t look at me like that,” I muttered uncomfortably, “I live here too, if the Avengers can’t stop them, then our home’s right in the line of fire.”

A smirk slowly grew over Luna’s face, “Sure, whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night.”

“I don’t sleep at night, that’s the point,” I said, turning away from my friend’s unwavering scrutiny. “The biggest problems I can see right now are the evacuation and those acid webs. They’re not leaving much safe room for the people to run too. The webs need to either be burnt or dissolved; I can’t tell what they’re made of, maybe even something as simple as water would work. The structural integrity of at least twenty buildings depends on that, because if they fall . . . catastrophe. Sweep the buildings for people and get them out of there, looks like the perimeter has enclosed at least a twelve block radius, then the webs, and obviously blast any spiders that get in your way. Can you do it?”

“Easily,” Luna said, her eyes starting to glow even underneath the mask at the prospect, “What are you going to be doing?”

“Can’t you feel it? They’re basically insects with a hive mentality, but they’ve got a primitive sort of telepathic communication going on—I’m going right to the top to break the queen.”

“Awww, Raven, why do you get to do all the fun stuff?”

“Because, my dear Smaug, you are the guardian of humanity, not me. Humanity is there, go guard it.” Luna was glaring at me beneath her mask. “And,” I added with just a hint of jealousy, “I can’t do what you do. I can’t be the hero they need, if you’ll forgive the cliché. What I’m about to do is going to go against everything we stand for when it comes to consent and to privacy and to free will and choice . . . I’m about to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.”

Luna looked up at the cloudless 11:00AM sky and back at me. “Raven, you sure you don’t need glasses? It’s not even noon.”

“I was trying to make a point!” I shot back.

“I know what you were trying to say, but as it’s a stupid ass thing to say, I’ve elected to ignore it. Now go on, let’s go save the day . . . again. Watch your six!”

That was Luna for you, she’d never let me be properly serious and have my melancholy moments. I shook my head and responded, “You too. Remember you don’t have my permission to die! Now time to catch a ride.” I smiled with all the confidence I didn’t feel as Luna sputtered, stuck between indignation and laughter, and raced across the rooftop and jumped on the back of a conveniently located spider. Stretching out my mind, I found the mind of the creature such as it was, and with shocking ease, I crushed it under my heel and bent it to my will. With lumbering steps, it slowly turned and began crawling across the buildings towards the ship.

***

I had to change rides three times because either the overgrown Tin Can or Mr. Boom-Boom kept killing my ride. “Oi!” I yelled, “Stop blowing holes in my ship!” (Not they either heard me or listened because they did it again!) Over the comm in my ear, I could hear Luna laughing at me. I waved at her in the nearby building where she was searching for more people to evacuate. And then how could a genius be so stupid? He shot the damn spider I was riding on out from under me! I’m a telekinetic, but my levitation skills were not up to par—at least not under pressure—Luna launched herself from the side of the building to give me a hand (when panicking, we weren’t always the most logical of people) and then the moron shot the both us just as Luna grabbed hold of my wrist and vanished us, only to reappear us fifty feet down on the sidewalk.

Sprawled across the sidewalk, with Luna’s hand still around my wrist, I began to curse, vividly in six languages. When Luna looked at me puzzled, I shook our joined arms. When Luna finally saw what I saw, she too began to curse, loudly in four other languages. The Tin Man’s last blast had only made one point of contact, our wrists and our respective bracelets. We were not getting out of this one without visual conformation of our existence.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have long to get really worked up about it—which was a shame, between us we’re very creative when it comes to curses, and once we get started it was usually highly entertaining. Less than ten seconds later, we were up and back into the fray, Luna taking out six spiders in one go as she magicked herself back into the building. I was about to grab onto yet another spider when something came to a skidding stop on the pavement in front of me. I’d already grabbed it before I realized what it was; big, round, and obnoxiously colored—I had my hand on none other than Cap’s patriotic Frisbee. Looking down the street, there was the Captain himself about to get mauled by a line of spiders. “Captain Obvious! Vatican Cameos!”

I could obviously count on the WWII vet to recognize the phrase, to the floor he dropped (and I wished I’d had time to appreciate the view) and with a little extra ‘umph’ from my abilities, (and my mad skills at Ultimate Frisbee) I flung the shield right through them, split them down the middle. “Three strikes you’re out at the old ball game!”

The Captain got to his feet, retrieved his shield and looked back at me. “Where’d you come from?” he asked me, taking a couple steps in my direction.

“I’m from Fresno, Ace,” I shot back as I picked up a fallen piece of debris and used it to skewer another oncoming spider midair. Huh, he looks like the stories, I thought to myself, looking back at the Captain’s s astonished expression as I jumped on another spider he's as real as Grandpa Jim always said.

***

When I finally made it to the ship, no thanks to those two flying monkeys, I was somewhat impressed. It really was a hive on the inside, all pigeon holes and cubicles with tech like nothing I’d ever seen before. If only I’d had more time, I would have been all over that. But the sounds of the battle raging below me echoed throughout the ship and spurred me on, tracking down the strongest mind in the place. I felt like I’d jumped into the evil version of the T.A.R.D.I.S. because the ship felt so much bigger on the inside. But eventually I found ither, the hive’s queen. If I thought the fifteen to twenty feet creatures were ugly, then she was monstrous. A good thirty feet tall and swollen like a balloon, she was reminiscent of a queen bee or ant, just with a massive spider for a head, and constantly laying eggs that smaller creatures took somewhere. Oh the joys of hive mentality, they had their task, nothing would interrupt them not even an intruder like me.

None of the other creatures I’d taken over has minds sophisticated enough for a thought process the way you and I might imagine but she could after a fashion. So, small, ugly creature, she said to me, the echo of her voice in my head like the crunching, gargling sound of the garbage disposal, who are you who comes before me?

“I am she who would have you leave my world peacefully or I shall be forced to destroy you,” I answered aloud, just to drive the echo from my ears.

“Hey, there’s something to be said about being direct, Raven,” Luna’s voice broke through the comm, startling a laugh out of me and a rough, gravelly sound from the creature in front of me.

Foolish one, we shall never leave. This world is ripe and pleasant, my children shall grow strong here, and you ugly, sacks of water, will make fine nourishment.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I just took out two dozen of your children on the way up here without breaking a sweat; I sincerely doubt you’ll be that much of a challenge.” Sometimes you gotta fake it ‘til you make it.

She hissed at me, a violent rattling gust that shook the ship beneath my boots and then she clumsily tried to invade my mind. In many ways she was a primordial being, something ancient and alien to this world. But at the same time, she was all brute force, no finesse or planning and no energy devoted to defending her own mind. Her initial onslaught made me waver and I dropped to one knee under the pressure she exerted, but when it got no worse, I realized that this was all she had, and I could work around that. Slowly, I began to push back, rising once more to my feet as I began to dismantle the battering ram she was using and slide into her own mind.

A creature of mostly instinct, it didn’t take long for her to revert to ‘flight’ and ‘survival’ mode, draining energy from her psychic bond with her children in a desperate bid to push me out. But it was far, far too late for that. With a final ‘snip’ of my proverbial scissors, I had the very fabric of the creature queen’s essence in my hands. I sent out my own instructions for the remaining creatures to return to the ship, and used them to reprogram the ship to return to wherever it came from.

I began to walk back the way I came, still connected to the queen, and the sea of incoming creatures parted before me like I was a rock in their path. My final act before I began my own slow, hovering descent was to snap the thread holding the old queen to life, so that she would never return to Earth again.

“I’m coming down, Smaug,” I said as I began the slow process of making myself levitate and began my descent, “Meet me halfway down and get us back, I need a damn shower.”

Still a good two hundred feet from the ground, Luna appeared beside me, also looking no worse for wear after our little excursion. She grabbed hold of my wrist once more, and we blinked out of Manhattan airspace.

***

Some twenty minutes later, midway through towel drying my hair, Luna called me into the front room, “Rin, you gotta come see this!”

“What, now, Luna, I’m working on my—“ I started but stopped when I caught sight of the T.V. All the news stations were running broadcasts about the two new ‘heroes’ who’d jumped in to save the day, though a couple of them were much less polite about it. There was grainy video of some of the spiders dropping dead of their own accord or people just appearing behind the police barricade after being purportedly rescued by a figure in black from some of the nearby buildings and then someone got the money shot right after Tin Man shot us down, of us falling from the sky, disappearing, and reappearing sprawled out on the sidewalk before jumping back into the action.

Whoever shot it wasn’t close enough for sound, but they got a great shot of Luna scaling a building to return to the rescue and then a panorama shot of me taking grabbing Cap’s shield and decimating the creatures who were about to have him for lunch.

There were shots of Luna rescuing people and then causing things to explode; and me jumping from back to back of each different spider thing when I wasn’t lifting debris without touching it and making spider shish-kabob with it. We were looking pretty badass, if I did say so myself. The news crews even had a name for us. They were calling us the Phantom Twins—which was ludicrous in its own right, even with the matching costumes, there was a fairly different size differential between Luna and myself, I’m taller and heavier with a broader build, we don’t even move the same way, I mean honestly.

But the part that made my blood run cold was at the end when the newscasters said that ‘the proper authorities’ were looking for those two ‘heroes’ and then appealed to the public, the whole if you have any information call this number shtick.

I sank down onto the sofa, towel and all. “Heimdallr, if ever I needed you before, I need you now. They can’t find us, not now, not yet. You promised you’d be there if this ever happened. It’s been over a decade in the making, but it’s happening now.”