Chapter 5
Over hundreds of bullets were fired at the same moment, ready to wipe them out.
But the bullets froze in midair right before it could touch anyone.
Seriously, it was pointless to fire a gun while Erik Lehnsherr was in the room. It was just a waste of time and energy.
The mutant just raised a hand calmly, stopping the rain of bullets in less than a second, then with a straight face and a flick of his fingers, returned the bullets to their owners.
Some of them fell and others got their weapons blown away, while the three masked figures and the one in the metal suit weren’t even affected or deterred.
“Attack!” one of the masked figures shouted again. Yet again, the voice sounded really familiar, but Tony couldn’t place his finger on it from the amount of vicious cruelty in it. “Kill them all! Leave no survivors.”
Honestly? He was more interested in the one in the metal suit. Feeling his heart pounding painfully, when he saw how identical it was to his own suit.
This couldn’t be possible.
Everyone moved at the same time.
The three masked figures stepped forward. Then, the weirdest and most confusing thing happened.
One of them sprouted out two huge black wings, that also were erringly familiar, but they were mostly covered with metal armor that spread over the black feathers.
Another masked figure grabbed a circular shield, that was strapped to their back, then attaching it to their arm, in a move that was so familiar, that Tony froze mid action. The last one remained motionless, obviously the one in charge, and just yelled their orders at the small army.
“Get everyone who is unarmed or doesn’t fight out of here!” Steve shouted, immediately entering his Captain America mode, not letting the familiar moves faze him, as he, Castiel and Dean charged forward without hesitation, while the Captain continued shouting his orders. “Tony, get a suit and my shield, now, then deal with the one in the metal suit! Erik, disarm them and hold off their bullets! Dean and Natasha, get the one in charge, I will deal with the one with the shield. Everyone else, get the others out and deal with the army. Cas, you-“
“-handle the winged one.” Castiel cut him off firmly, as he sprouted out his own wings and Tony couldn’t help but stop and stare.
The wings were identical! Castiel’s and the masked figure had the exact same wings!
Tony’s heart started to pound loudly in his chest as he summoned a suit.
He stupidly chose to not place the arc reactor suit on his chest for the party, and he was regretting the decision violently right now.
He ducked away from the fight as he waited for his suit, and watched the scene around him.
It was chaos. Absolute chaos.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” Natasha yelled as she angrily ripped the side of her long dress, so she could fight easier, enraged at the attackers for ruining the day, and then she was fighting her way with Dean by her side, towards the masked figure in charge.
Meanwhile, Charles was helping Coulson and Bruce in filing out the unarmed shield agents, Pepper, Charlie, Jody and a very stubborn Bobby, who was insisting to fight, but a few words from Charles got him helping in getting the others out. All the while, Raven fighting off anyone who gets near them as she cleared the way for them.
Bucky, Rhodey, Wilson and Clint were immediately on the move, even unarmed, as they attacked the armed soldiers charging at them and fought against them viciously. Soon, they were joined by Logan, who pulled out his claws and Hank, who turned into his furry blue monster self.
Sam, obviously just as frustrated and enraged as his soon to be wife, attacked the soldier closest him, disarmed him and used the stolen gun to rain bullets at the other soldiers angrily. Behind him, Thor had summoned his hammer and started to threw the soldiers around just as angrily.
Castiel and the winged, masked figure rose from the ground slowly, as they sized each other up.
“Who are you?” Castiel demanded in a strong voice, eyes never leaving the other.
“Come and find out.” The figure answered in a strange voice, they probably have a voice changer in the mask they were wearing under the hood that was covering their head.
Castiel gave them a long look, before suddenly flying through the large windows and away into the sky, the figure following him in equal speed. The angel probably thought it’d be better to take that fight away from them, in case things got ugly. Which was the smartest move to do at the moment.
Tony’s eyes had just landed on his idiot of a husband, charging unarmed at the masked figure with the shield, without bothering to wait for his own shield to come with the suit, when the one in the metal suit landed suddenly in front of Tony and raised their hand towards him, ready to blast him.
***
Castiel made sure that he was far enough from the tower, before he finally turned to face his pursuer.
The moment he turned around, he found himself being tackled in an unhuman speed right into the side of a skyscraper.
He hit the building hard, along with the thing he was fighting, but moved away fast before the punch directed at him landed on his face, and he watched the fist making a hole into the building, before grapping the winged figure hard and threw them towards the sky.
***
Erik saw the masked figure in charge pulling out a bow that looked suspiciously like the one Clint has, and started to shoot explosive arrows at his family.
One of the arrows was pointed directly at Charles and Erik saw red. He stopped the arrow, right before it even touched his husband, and threw it at a group of soldiers that were fighting with Raven.
He turned back towards the masked bastard, but saw that they were busy fighting with both Dean and Natasha and he figured they could handle it.
A movement to his left caught his attention. He looked over, only to see a fifth masked figure, that was keeping themselves hidden all that time, charging with two swords towards Charles and the unarmed group of people.
“Oh, hell no.” he growled as he charged towards the overly tall figure.
***
“Nice suit. Where did you steal it from?”
Tony asked coldly, as he stared unflinchingly at the metal suit in front of him. He really did chose the wrong day to not attach his arc reactor to his chest.
Whoever inside the suit let out a chuckle, that made a shiver run down Tony’s spine from how chilling it was.
“I made it myself, Bird brain. But I made the colors more suitable for me.” The voice mocked as he stepped towards Tony, his hand still raised towards him. “I am not sorry to say this, but you have to die in this fight, buddy. The two of us can’t exist in the same world. It’s too much for everyone’s brains and sanity.”
“Then I guess you just have to go back to whatever hellhole you came from.” Tony raised an eyebrow at him. Where the hell was his suit?!
“The only one going to a hellhole is you.” with that he attacked.
Tony ducked and rolled away from the too strong repulsor blast, that was sure to turn his head to ash if he was slow enough, just when his suit finally crashed into the room, while holding Steve’s shield in its hands.
His suit merged into him, just when the metal clad figure turned towards him again.
“Steve!” Tony called for his husband and threw the shield towards him.
After making sure that Steve caught the shield easily, he turned to face the black Iron figure.
***
Steve charged, unarmed, towards the masked figure carrying the black shield.
He didn’t make himself stop and think about how familiar that figure was carrying themselves. Or how the wings of the winged figure were identical to Castiel’s. Or even the fact that there was one wearing an exact replica of the Iron Man suit.
No, he couldn’t think about any if that at the moment. If he did, it will slow him down and he couldn’t afford that at the moment. His family was being threatened and attacked. After everyone was safe, he will think about all that.
The one with the shield turned towards him in the last second, and blocked his fist with the shield. Steve felt pain shot up his arm, when his fist connected with the hard, familiar metal and he hid his wince.
That was Vibranium. There was no doubt about that. Steve had his shield long enough to know the rare metal anywhere. Not to mention that usually, his fist was enough to put an indent in any other metal with almost no pain at all.
That thing was fighting with an exact replica of his shield.
Nope, he can’t stop and think about that. Nope.
He engaged with the figure, still frustratingly unarmed. In any other moment, that wouldn’t be a problem, since he was perfectly capable of fighting bare handed, but this fight was increasingly frustrating and confusing to Steve.
The thing predicted every move he made, then either blocked it or countered with one of Steve’s own moves. No matter what Steve did, the thing predicted it like it was a second nature to them.
“Steve!” he looked up at the sound of his name in Tony’s voice and saw his shield flying towards him.
He immediately jumped and caught his shield easily, then landed back on his feet to face his frustrating enemy.
***
Dean and Natasha finally managed to fight their way towards the masked figure in charge, who was busy shooting fucking explosive arrows around mercilessly.
Without stopping to think, they both attacked at the same time. Natasha and him always worked great together. They read each other well and fast during battles, that they don’t even need to stop and discuss their moves, they just charge head first, counting on the other to catch up fast enough.
The masked bastard wasn’t caught off guard, despite their sudden attack, they just turned and blocked both attacks easily, like they were just swatting a fly.
That didn’t stop them though. They both were equally enraged at the ruining of that special day.
Fucking hell, they couldn’t even get one happy day without it ending bloody.
Dean was never more glad about his habit of always carrying a knife on him. Thankfully, his future sister had the same habit.
He and Natasha both pulled out their hidden knives and attacked again.
The fucking masked figure seemed to be completely unbothered by their attacks. They just dodged and blocked their attempts, then strike them just as easily. That seemed to frustrate Natasha even more as she growled and jumped at the masked bastard.
She was grabbed by her throat, before she could even lay a finger on them, then Dean find himself tackled to the floor when she was thrown at him violently.
***
Erik was moving forward with pure rage alone, as he saw the tall, masked figure walking purposefully towards Charles, like it was his mission or something.
Now that Erik thought about it, two of the masked, hooded figures came after Charles so far. Was it possible that part of this attack was to take out the telepath or something?
Even if it was. He would die before he let anyone lay a finger on his husband. Whoever planned this, clearly forgot about his existence.
The last mistake they will ever do.
By then, Charles had managed, with Raven and Bruce’s help, to clear out everyone who wasn’t armed or in a shape to fight, however, the telepath seemed reluctant to leave without helping the ones actually fighting.
Just when the telepath turned around to see who needed help, he found himself face to face with the tall masked figure, facing their two huge swords.
When one of the swords was raised towards his husband, Erik came between them and stopped the swords midair with his powers.
The figure turned towards him, looking shocked and caught off guard, which confused Erik for a moment. He didn’t really try to keep his powers a secret, and everyone who knew about Charles, in addition, must know about him and his powers.
If these people were coming after Charles, they should know about him.
He took this to his advantage, however. He used the swords and made them twine around the tall figure’s upper body like vines, effectively paralyzing him from the waist up.
But not from the waist down.
The figure, suddenly, snapped into motion, charging towards Erik at full speed, catching the metal binder off guard without having time to move away from the wall of muscle running towards him.
But right before the large figure collided with him, Erik heard a thud, then the figure dropped by Erik’s feet, unmoving.
The mutant looked up, to see Charles standing with a stolen machine gun in his hand, which he used it’s butt to hit the back of the figure’s head.
“You know, I am starting to like how amazing you look when you save my ass.” Erik commented, feeling a smile creep on his face, as he marveled at the sight of his husband with a machine gun in his hand and a serious look on his face.
“Now you know how I feel when you do it.” Charles smiled back at him as he dropped the gun to the floor, still not that comfortable with carrying weapons. “I think we just got ourselves a worthy prisoner, who, hopefully, will explain this attack.”
***
Things were in pure chaos.
Tony still engaging with the other figure in the metal suit, and the fight seemed endless, since apparently both suits and owners, erringly had the same strength and moves.
Same thing in Steve’s fight with the one with the shield, no hope in either of them backing down, even if the fight seemed to go on forever.
Dean and Natasha still attacking the third masked figure, who didn’t waver or even get tired from their continuous attacks.
Around the room, the others were still taking down the black army, that seemed to never stop coming, no matter how many of them they brought down.
Erik was disarming the soldiers and using their own guns at them, while Charles was trying to get into their attackers’ minds, but for some unknown reason, he couldn’t. He was getting radio silence from all of them.
That army came here way too prepared for them. like they knew them inside out. That was terrifying on its own.
***
Castiel was still fighting the winged figure in the sky of New York, but the fight seemed to go on forever without either of them even thinking about backing down or stopping.
The angel hated to admit it, but his rival was strong. Too strong that he was equal to him in strength and speed, it was alarming.
No, what was more alarming was that the figure was using Castiel’s same fighting techniques, copying them perfectly and effortlessly, that it caught him off guard for a second.
Apparently, a second was enough for the other.
He suddenly felt a hand wrap around his throat tightly, then he was thrown hard towards the Avengers Tower.
He crashed hard into the roof of the penthouse, right in the middle of the still ongoing fight.
He hit the ground hard, feeling like every inch of his body raging in pain.
He heard Dean calling his name frantically. He could also see Erik get hit in the head by some debris from the roof and drop to the floor unmoving, with a frantic Charles rushing towards him. Clint and Hank were also hit by the debris, but the angel couldn’t see the damage it did to them.
He heard the sound of feet landing behind him, and he gritted his teeth in rage.
“Stay down.” The winged figure ordered harshly and stood over him mockingly.
Castiel felt rage rise through him as he stared at the floor in front of him. Felt his grace reacting to his rising anger.
When he heard the figure getting closer, he suddenly got to his feet, turned around with his palm raised up and fired his grace at the figure’s face with burning intensity.
He heard the winged figure’s muted shout behind their mask, as they stumbled back in complete disorientation.
Castiel took the opportunity to grab them by their head and punched their middle with every ounce of strength inside, then watched in satisfaction as they flew across the room, only to land hard on the floor and curl into themselves while clutching their middle in agony.
“No!” a loud, harsh scream sounded in the room, coming from the masked figure fighting Dean and Natasha, who now completely ignored his two attackers and focused solely on the curled up winged figure.
They suddenly broke away from Dean and Natasha, then rushed over to the winged one to carry them over their shoulder frantically.
“Retreat! All soldiers retreat!” they shouted firmly, as they moved back.
The soldiers, the one with the shield and the one in the metal suit, immediately fell back after the command. A bright white light, then, shined in the room, blinding everyone for a few seconds.
When they opened their eyes carefully again, the army and the masked figures all disappeared just as suddenly as they appeared.
They all looked at each other, stunned. Having no idea what the hell just happened and why.
“Well, this isn’t the toasts I expected to happen in the Rehearsal Dinner.” Sam sighed tiredly, while pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “They couldn’t even let me get married first before dealing with this shit.”