[Homeplot 2009] Secret Invasion

[forhawkeye]

Have you ever have a dream that was so vivid, so extraordinarily detailed that, despite the fact it was also so utterly absurd, it somehow didn't make it seem any less real? That's what Tabula Rasa was for me. Months of memories and experiences...all of it the result of a knock to the head.

I never left the invasion.

All around me is chaos. Skrulls and heroes and villains alike, all fighting for control of the planet, and the sound -- oh my God, the sound -- is deafening. I wince as I pull myself up from the ground, absently noting that I'm in full uniform. And why shouldn't I be? I never left the invasion. And so all those people I knew...they were all figments of my imagination. Nate, Serena, Alice, Mikal, Yorick, Remy... I always assumed Felix wasn't real, anyway, so he doesn't come as much of a surprise, but it makes perfect sense, now, how there could possibly be a Tony Stark who hadn't betrayed everyo--

"HAWKEYE, LOOK OUT!" yells Patriot -- Eli -- and he's already running towards me before I have a chance to react. In what feels like slow motion, I turn to see what I'm supposed to be looking out for, but I don't register what it is until after he's shoved me out of the way, and the ground behind us is engulfed in fire, courtesy of a Skrull Human Torch. "What the hell's wrong with you?!" he asks, though the edge of panic in his voice is all too clear, and he grabs me by the shoulders. "Now's not the time to get PTSD -- we haven't even gotten to the 'post' part yet!"

I nod mutely. A few seconds pass before I find my voice again. "I'm fine."

"You don't look it," he says.

A Skrull falls dead beside us. We both turn to see who's responsible, and we're greeted with a loud whoop as a grinning Bullseye pumps his fist in the air and dives back into the fray. I feel like I'm going to be sick. Instead I clear my throat and stand up straight, shoulders back. "I'm fine."

The corners of his mouth quirk upwards in a smile, and he nods approvingly. Well, at least one of us is convinced. I guess that's better than nothing, right? Giving my shoulders one last squeeze, he then takes a step back and nods towards the fight. "Let's get to work."

"Yeah," I say, reaching into my quiver to draw an arrow. "Let's."

Comments

[forhawkeye]

Put this many defenseless people in one spot, and that's where the Skrulls are going to come running. I'm firing off arrows left and right, but they're starting to get a little too close for comfort. One comes out of nowhere, and lands a kick to my stomach, stumbling back into Billy.

"You need to speed this up a bit, Wiccan," I say, an edge of panic creeping into my voice.

[halfscarlet]

Whatever Kate said got lost in the haze of the spell being cast, and he barely felt her bumping into him. There was a split second just as the spell started to work where Billy realized it wasn't going to. Whatever the Skrulls did to knock Kate into him (because she wouldn't do that if she could help it, Billy knew) had broken his concentration. It didn't matter that it was only a bump-- even lesser distractions were still distractions.

A split second wasn't enough time to do anything, though, even when Billy stopped chanting. The o-zone taste in the back of his throat, the hair on the back of his neck standing up, a bunch of other little tell tale signs meant the spell had been cast, and once that happened, Billy couldn't stop it.

"Oh, shi--"

There was a brilliant flash of blue-white magic, and while there was no physical blast to knock him back, Billy still stumbled into Kate, dazed. He'd never had so much of his energy backfire, and dimly, Billy hoped he hadn't just doomed innocent people into being scattered across the battlefield.

[forhawkeye]

That wasn't a good sound. Whipping around so I can land a roundhouse kick on the Skrull that knocked me into Billy in the first place, I break out one of my battle-staves to whack it in the head, rendering it, at the very least, unconscious.

"What the hell just happened?"

[halfscarlet]

"Backfired," Billy replied simply, trying not to panic in the streets of New York. Panicking wasn't going to do a damn thing to help, and besides, you never saw the Avengers panicking. He straightened up again, and began casting a new spell to locate everyone.

He was still hopeful, after all. They could be anywhere. It could have worked, just not the way Billy wanted.

Magic sucked sometimes.

"The blond guy's two blocks north in an alley, the older guy's...holy crap, he just threw one of your arrows at a Skrull-- Sue Storm's got him now, he's fine. The other guy iiiiis, I think he's hiding under a taxi near the alley with the blond."

Snapping out of the spell, Billy looked up just in time to send a bolt of lightning across the street at a Skrull coming up behind Teddy, who was busy dealing with two already.

[forhawkeye]

"$*!(!" I say, pressing a hand to my forehead. I need to get Osborn out of the way before history goes and repeats itself. I pull out the handheld computer that picks up all of the tracers' signals, and I press it into his hand.

"Give that to Teddy," I tell him, and it's a damn good thing I hold just as much sway as Eli. "I'm putting you two on shepherding duty."

[halfscarlet]

"Great," Billy said, but he took it anyway. Considering the crap they'd just gone through trying to keep Teddy from being killed by crazy Skrulls, Billy was perfectly happy being stuck on rounding up the civilians duty with him.

As happy as you could get in the middle of an alien invasion anyway.

Gripping the computer, Billy turned back toward the street, steeling himself to go back out into the fray. "So, you're gonna explain why these guys get special treatment later, right?"

[forhawkeye]

"If we all live through this?" I say, already scanning through the crowd for Osborn. "Count on it."

[halfscarlet]

"Stay safe, Hawkeye," Billy replied, refusing to deal in ifs when it came to life and death. The battlefield was no place for sentimentality, but he gave her arm a squeeze anyway, before darting back out into the street.