CH 18: Argument

Loki walked around in his glass cage before he suddenly stopped and smirked :"There's not many people who can sneak up on me."

He turned around to see Natasha standing a few meters away from the glass cage :"But you figured I'd come."

Loki :"After. After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate."

Natasha :"I want to know what you've done to agent Barton."

Loki :"I would say I've expanded his mind."

"And once you've won," Natasha said as she walked closer to his glass cage as she folded her arms under her gorgeous girls :"Once you're king of the mountain, what happens to his mind?"

Loki :"*Smirking* Is this love, agent Romanoff?"

Natasha :"Love is for children. I owe him a debt."

"Then tell me..." Loki trailer off with a smirk :"What of the child?" Causing Natasha to tighten up slightly :"What about him? He's no part of this..."

Loki chuckled as he shook his head :"Oh I disagree. The way the young beauty fought and the power he displayed... Maybe I should persuade him to join my army?"

Natasha's gaze hardened as she gritted her teeth and glared at the god of mischief :"You touch a hair on him, and I'll have your head rolling on the ground."

Loki chuckled as he tilted his head :"Oh? Have I touched a nerve? He is truly beautiful, you know? Maybe I'll have him crawling under my feet when I have conquered the Earth. He doesn't really put an effort in hiding the beauty of his body either, hahaha, I'm absolutely sure that conquering his body will be extremely fun as well. Maybe I'll even let my people have fun with his magnificent body?" <Ayooo...>

His smug smile grew as he watched how Natasha glared daggers at him. If looks could kill, he would be 12 feet under by now.

-

Quite a while had passed from when Tony and Steve had argued, and now, the three were still sitting in the laboratory. Ali had focused on making his weapons for Natasha since he knew that the war would be starting in a little while.

He made her a set of Storage Bracelets with Doomblades (Doom Eternal) attached to them, Gilgamesh (DMC 4) for close combat, Ebony & Ivory (DMC), and Kalina Ann (DMC) for large-scale destruction.

He was just checking all of them for a second or third time to make sure there wasn't anything wrong with them before putting them in Natasha's Storage Bracelets.

He put her Storage Bracelets in his own Storage Bracelet to give them to her when he saw her, but Fury walked into the laboratory as he glared at Tony :"What are you doing, Mr Stark?"

Tony didn't waver as he sat on Bruce's desk :"Kind of been wondering the same thing about you."

Fury :"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

Bruce :"We are. The model's liked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"Yeah, then you get your Cube back. No muss, no fuss." Before the holographic screen in front of him flashed :"What is "Phase 2"?"

"Phase 2 is SHIELD using the Cube to make weapons." Steve put a weapon on a desk as he looked at Fury and Ali :"Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me."

Ali put his hands up in surrender as he shook his head :"Hey, don't look at me, I don't know shit. I'm just a glorified intern that has an intimate relationship with the higher ups."

Fury :"Rogers, we gathered everything related to Tesseract. This does not mean that we're making-"

"I'm sorry, Nick." Tony interrupted as he turned the screen in front of him around that was clearly showing weapons being made :"What were you lying?"

Steve :"I was wrong, director. The world hasn't changed a bit."

Thor and Natasha walked into the laboratory as Natasha moved to stand beside Ali's seat as she put a hand on his shoulder :"Hey, Ali." Ali smiled, but he noticed how her hold on his shoulder felt a little tighter than usual. But he just ignored it as he smiled at her :"Hey, Nat."

"Did you know about this?" Bruce let out as he pointed at the screen as Natasha looked at him :"You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?"

Bruce :"Hahaha I was in Kolkata. I was pretty well removed."

Natasha :"Loki is manipulating you."

Bruce :"And you've been doing what, exactly?"

Ali's smile fell as he got up and stood next to Natasha and glared at Bruce :"Watch your mouth, Bruce. You might not want to continue using it."

But Natasha gently grabbed his hand and gently squeezed :"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

Ali :'Shiiit, I did...'

Bruce :"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

There was a moment of silence before Fury pointed at Thor and Ali :"Because of them."

Thor :"Me?"

Ali :"What now?"

Fury :"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. And you won't believe half of the things that the kid has done. We learned that not only are we not alone but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."

Thor :"My people want nothing but peace with your planet."

Fury :"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled."

Ali folded his arms in front of his chest as he raised an eyebrow :"People like me? There are no people like me on Earth.

Thor :"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

As the others began to argue, Ali glanced at the scepter to notice it glowing slightly as he felt an energy radiating from it. He quietly walked towards the scepter as he slowly raised his hand.

The moment he grabbed the scepter, a blue energy flowed to Ali's hand as a bit of blue appeared in his blood red eyes. But the changes in his vision were far more than what could be seen from the outside.

Numerous colors flashed in his vision, as if he was in a space tunnel. But all of it suddenly stopped as he saw a single, purple figure sitting on a floating throne in space.

The purple figure opened his eyes as he looked directly at Ali with his blueish purple eyes before he smirked :"So... It has begun." And Ali couldn't stop the bloodthirsty and battle hungry smile that formed on his lips :'Thanos...'

-

After a little bit of arguing, Fury was the first one to notice Ali holding the scepter with a mean smile, one that he would show only when he was about to go on a rampage.

He slowly moved his hand to his gun, causing the others to notice and look at Ali as well as Fury gently let out :"Ashborne... Put the scepter down..."

Ali's eyes moved slowly as he glanced at him with a smile still on his face, causing a shiver to run down Fury's black. "Ali?" Ali glanced at the hand right beside his gun before he (Ali) glanced at the worried Natasha :"Are you alright?"

There was a moment of silence before he put the scepter in its previous place and his malicious smile disappeared as he chuckled nonchalantly :"Yeah, I'm good. So what did I miss?"

But just before anybody could say anything, the alarm of a computer in the lab went off. Everybody looked at it as Thor spoke :"You located the Tesseract?"

"I could get there the fastest." Tony let out before Thor disagreed :"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard. No human is a match for it."

Natasha came to Ali's side as she held his hand and looked at his eyes :"Are you alright, Ali?" It was normal for Natasha to be worried for him or ask for his well being, but Ali noticed how she was more anxious than usual. He smiled gently and hugged her :"Yeah... I'm good..."

But the two were ignored by others as Tony moved, but Steve grabbed his forearm :"You're not going alone!" And Tony slapped his hand away :"You're gonna stop me?"

"Put on the suit, let's find out." Steve spoke as the two stood mere inches away from each other as Tony shot back :"I'm not afraid to hit an old man."

"Put on the suit." Steve gritted out as the two stared at each other while Bruce took his glasses off after looking at the computer :"Oh, my God..."

Unbeknownst to all of them, except for Ali who knew everything, the mind controlled Hawkeye had shot an explosive arrow at one of the engines.

He knelt down before he pressed a key on his bow, causing the arrow to explode and take one of the turbines with it. The fire caused by the explosion traveled through a part of the Helicarrier and unfortunately, reached the laboratory where the Avengers were.

Ali knew about it, so he shielded Natasha so that nothing would happen to her as the explosion separated the Avengers from each other. And unfortunately, Ali and Natasha were separated as well. She and Bruce hit the glass, shattered it and fell straight down.

-

"Romanoff?!" Fury spoke into his earpiece after giving a few orders to other agents. Natasha groaned in pain as she looked at her leg which was trapped under a huge pipe :"Ugh, we're okay."

But as she noticed the twitching Bruce, she started to sweat :"We're okay, right?" Natasha continued to struggle to get her leg out as Bruce twitched and groaned in anger :"Doctor? Bruce? You gotta fight it. This is just what Loki wants. We're going to be okay. Listen to me."

"Are you hurt?!" An agent called out before Natasha waved them off and they got the message as Natasha continued to talk to Bruce :"We're going to be okay, alright? I swear on my life, I will get you out of this. You will walk away and never ever-"

"Your life?!?!" Bruce shouted in anger with his voice sounding off from his usual voice. He continued to grunt and growl in a monstrous voice as his body began to expand and his skin started to turn green.

As Bruce slowly started to transform into Hulk, Natasha finally freed her leg before she began to run away from Hulk who was chasing her. Natasha ran up the stairs, but quickly jumped away onto the pipes just in the nick of time as Hulk easily tore the stairs before she ran away.

Natasha quietly moved around with a gun in her hand, as she looked around, looking for both an escape route and the raging green monster who wanted to kill her.

However, the said green monster suddenly appeared some distance away as it roared at. Natasha quickly shot a pipe on top of him, resulting in gas getting sprayed to his face and buying her some time.

She quickly ran away as Hulk ran after her, ripping the structures around him just by ramming into them. Nothing got in the monstrosity's path as he ran after Natasha before he slapped her away.

She hit a wall before she fell to the ground, groaning. Just as Hulk was about to deliver the finishing blow, a figure rammed into Hulk and took him away.

As the figure slammed Hulk to a wall, the metallic wall didn't stand a chance as they tore through and went to another room. The figure was Thor, and Ali quickly approached the panting Natasha with a worried look :"Natasha! Natasha! Are you alright?!"

But Natasha didn't answer, shaken by the turn of events. She just looked at Ali's worried eyes while shaking and panting slightly as Ali grabbed her hands and held them reassuringly.

He held both of her hands as he brought them to his lips and gently kissed them :"It's alright, Nat, it's alright, I'm here. Don't worry, it's alright."

Natasha's breathing calmed down a little as she focused on Ali and both of them tried to ignore the smashing sounds from away. Ali kissed her hands again before kissing her forehead as he growled :"You stay here, I will take care of it."

He gently let her hands down as he got up and walked towards the battlefield after Natasha calmed down slightly. As he walked, his body began to get bigger, similar to Bruce's from before.

His clothes began to tear as his hair turned from jet black to snow white and his snow white skin began to turn gray. His nails began to grow and several sharp, bone-like things began to grow out of his body.

As he reached the battlefield where Thor and Hulk were fighting, he roared like a monster, Ali's voice fading away little by little :"Oh, you overgrown green piece of shit! YOU WANT A RAGING MONSTER?! THE TODAY WILL BE YOUR DOOMSDAY!!!"

His body completely transformed. No longer human, but a monster. As Natasha looked from afar, she didn't see the beautiful teenager, but she saw a gray, thorny monster of about 7 to 8 feet tall. He was no longer Ali. He was, The Ultimate.