X and Kraven: Jungle Steel!

X walked up to Kraven. The hunter and android had been walking together ever since leaving the caves and finding their way back to the river and had now come upon something Kraven had wished to investigate.

A trail, this one headed in the same direction as them. X watched Kraven as he sniffed the air, pressed his palm to the tracks, and generally wasted an infuriating amount of time.

“We need to move on,” X said firmly.

Kraven looked up at X, then away. “Not yet. I’m trying to get a sense for the animals that made these tracks. To understand them.”

“I do not care. We need to find Dial.”

The hunter stood up and turned to scowl at X. “And that is what I am doing. I know you believe that a search requires smashing the jungle beneath your feet with all the subtlety of a drill to a watermelon, but I have some experience with this sort of thing.”

That was true. X didn’t have the full files, but Kraven was well-reputed for the times he had helped with rescues in the wilderness whenever a tourist, child, or fool got lost.

“How may I help?” X finally said.

“Ahhhh,” Kraven sighed. “That is the question I wanted from you! Now, while Kraven does have excellent senses-”

“You just referred to yourself in the third person,” X said dryly.

“Please, Kraven is speaking. Now, even with my senses being as acute as they are, they are useless without context. Without understanding. So, I must study my prey’s movements first. For example, here,” Kraven walked about twenty feet away and kneeled down, pressing his palm against the dirt. “The animals walked in a pack, following something similar to the patterns of wolves. They were larger animals, as tall as a man. Predators, based on the fact that they never stopped to devour the foliage. And their feet are interesting. Similar to that of birds of prey, but with a single long talon on each foot, made to slice and into prey.”

“A descendant of raptors,” X said.

“Possibly,” Kraven stood. “But the talon is a boon to us. Here, the talon is lowered to the ground, relaxed, not ready for use. Further down,” Kraven walked forty feet up along the river. “The pack hesitates. The talons raise. And they begin to move with purpose. They sensed prey. We should confirm if our part-time alien was the target. This way.”

Kraven began to run, leaving X to follow.

X was glad. If Kraven had stood there talking for a moment longer, he would have lost his temper.

------

When they got to the site, they found they weren’t the first to arrive.

In a bamboo forest, they found a makeshift shelter formed out of bamboo, a fire that had gone out long ago, makeshift spears, and the dead bodies of three animals.

And blood. Blood spilled in spots where the raptors hadn’t fallen.

X walked forward slowly.

“Kraven. Explain the sequence of events as you see them,” X said softly, his southern accent faded to something more robotic.

The Russian hunter didn’t respond. He simply strode forward and began to roam the camp. He stared at the corpses, the fire, the shelter, took a sniff of the air, examined the blood on one of the spears, then stared off into the bamboo forest.

“...Your boy bedded down for the night. He was walking along the river and stopped here because of the bamboo, using it for tools and water, obviously. I can smell something similar to scorpion meat, so he must have found a couple of them if the scent is this strong.”

“Prehistoric scorpions could be several feet in length,” X interrupted.

Kraven blinked. A savage smile of excitement grew on his face for a moment before he shook his head. “Well. He was attacked by these big boys. But when he managed to fight and kill three of them, the others ran off. Big boys like this eat on the spot after all, so his corpse would have been laid here, and there would be signs of feeding even if he’d been dragged off later by scavengers.

Then…”

Kraven strode around the fire, his gait low. X had noticed that about him. He didn’t walk the way a human usually did. Not even like the various spies and martial artists X had interacted with. He walked like… well, like some combination of man and big cat.

“Here,” Kraven leaned down and reached down. When his hand came up, a single dart was held in his hand. Kraven smirked. “They caught your boy at his weakest. Bleeding,” Kraven pointed at a spot of red on the floor. “Exhausted. They hit him with this,” Kraven sniffed the needle. “I’ve used similar toxins. But it’s hard. They need to be the exact dosage. Too much and you get an overdose death. Too little and you just get a pissed off target. Whoever shot this knew what they were doing. They wanted him alive.”

Kraven pocketed the dart and stood. “Their footsteps come up to him. When they leave, they’re deeper. Dial is alive. And we have an actual trail to him now. No more river following, my dear X. Just the hunt.”

The last word was said with intense relish.

X nodded. “Good.”

“Strange,” Kraven looked around. “I wonder-” Kraven stopped, eyes narrowing. X heard the same sound in the same instant.

It rushed out of the jungle about forty feet from them, shaking the ground with it’s footsteps. It was utterly silent beside that. This was an ambush after all. Kraven and X spun to face the beast. In the split-second they had, Kraven took in the sight of the animal. His eyes came alight with an eager flame.

X recognized the Tyrannosaurus Rex on sight. Despite being heavy with muscle, its back covered in black and red fur-like feathers with a bare, scaly face, and moving faster than had been predicted, there were too many indicators to ignore the fact. X hypothesized it to be about 8 metric tons. It was incredibly huge, powerful, and fast.

With the incredible reaction speeds afforded to AI, X was able to assess the moment, to truly look at the T-Rex. The sun shone off its feathers in an array of patterns. Bamboo and wood shattered under its bulk. Its eyes were a deep honey gold, gaze ferocious as it stared at Kraven. X stepped forward to attempt to protect Krav-

“YES!” Kraven roared, running forward while ripping his two daggers out of their sheaths.

X felt the closest he could feel to shock.

Kraven, in a complete reverse of what any rational human being would do, ripped a spear out of the ground and rushed towards the dinosaur. “Don’t do anything! Let me handle it!”

X reached for the rifle on his back, not knowing what to do now. He projected his voice. “The smartest thing to do is to have me shoot the-”

“Let me have this!”

Then it was too late. Kraven and the T-Rex met in the center of the forest, both loud roars. Kraven, just before the T-Rex could get to him stabbed the bamboo spear into the ground, using it as a pole vault to jump high above the T-Rex as the dinosaur tried to bite him half. Kraven landed on the dinosaurs back with the grace of a cat.

“GRUCH!” came the sound of surprise and anger. The T-Rex spun around, trying to throw Kraven off.

“I traveled thousands of miles for this,” Kraven said happily. He rode the back of the dinosaur, struggling to stay standing while tens of thousands of pounds of pissed off animal bucked underneath him. Kraven took his two daggers and stabbed deep into the dinosaurs back. The T-Rex roared as blood sprayed into the air. The T-Rex, further enraged, dropped to the ground and rolled. Kraven leapt off it’s back as it twisted to the ground, getting swatted by the larger hunters’ body, only for Kraven to take the blow and roll backward, snapping back to his feet and jumping back onto the T-Rex. This time, he landed on the dinosaur’s neck, straddling it like a prehistoric cowboy. Then he raised his daggers high.

Bone and steel slashed down into the eyes of the T-Rex. She screamed in pain. Kraven laughed, raising his daggers again and slashing into it with vicious cruelty. She fell to the ground, blinded, trying to get him off her back. Kraven stayed atop her and slashed her throat. Blood spilled across the earth, steam rolling off of it. The dinosaur twitched and shook on the ground as Kraven panted atop it, eyes gleaming with mirth.

X watched the scene as Kraven finished killing the dinosaur. “That was unnecessary.”

Kraven, his chest, face, and arms soaked scarlet, gave X a smile. “No. It was. She wanted to hunt me and I wanted to hunt her. I won.”

“She was-”

Kraven scoffed. “Don’t. I’m quite sure an AI would have no concept of what the thrill of a good clean kill is like. Believe me. She would have been just as ready to eat us. This is the way of the

jungle, X.”

Kraven reached down and patted the dinosaur’s head. “She was strong. Powerful,” he took hold of one of the T-Rex’s teeth and ripped it out of the jaw. “It is only a shame that we have work to do. Even with scavengers on the way, quite a bit of meat will go to waste. We should have scientists come out to collect it for research, yes?”

“... They’ll be on their way. Let’s go,” X said, keeping his displeasure to himself.

What a waste of time. Kraven may have enjoyed himself, but all X had was an acute understanding that every moment wasted was a moment Mahmoud could have died.

“Well, tell them to leave the skin for me if possible. And don’t worry yourself,” Kraven walked away, pocketing the fang he’d ripped out of the T-Rex’s head. “We’ll find him. The trail is clear,” he pointed at the ground. “This way.”

X followed with some trepidation. It was becoming very clear that while they shared the same mission, their differing methods and goals were going to cause some issues…

------

Maria Hill/Director of BRIDGE

Maria stood in her office, tracking through the various operations happening across the world. As of now, the mission reports she was getting were beginning to throw her just a bit. Right now, she was looking at a map of the Earth with small markings showing the teams.

Steve, Sam and Bucky were in Argentina chasing down weapons smugglers who had somehow got their hands on Chitauri technology (Seriously, they had shown up on Earth for about an hour, how had they left so many weapons behind?). She tried not to look at that one too often since she couldn’t play favorites. Thankfully, Sam was safe.

Tony was in Rio, finishing some of the clean-up that had to be done. He’d been there for a while and ended up meeting on of his… contemporaries.

------

Tony Stark/Iron Man

Tony floated above the city of Rio, watching as a set of prefab apartment buildings were being completed for refugees to use. They were basically big blocks of premade apartments stacked one on top of the other, allowing for buildings to be built in mere days. In other words, perfect for rebuilding Rio.

He was also having an argument.

“-having all these gadgets makes my suit adaptable, not glitchy,” Tony snarked to the woman standing on top of the building they were watching from. “Do you realize how much crazy shit we deal with? I can handle all of it. Meanwhile, you find one guy who is lightning and explosion-proof and you fall apart.”

“I do not fall apart,” Galina, the Crimson Dynamo, glared up at him from inside her massive suit. “I am more than adaptable, I am simply stating that you have so much junk inside your armor that you risk much more instability.”

“Junk?!” Tony looked at her, the slits on his armor gently glowing. “Look, I admit that the fact you can fire lightning is brilliant and we should trade tips on the ion cannon you made, but I’m willing to bet I can hack this entire city, fight off an army and do that in a temperature-controlled environment while streaming Ghostbusters right to my HUD!”

“You Americans and your need for superfluous tech,” Galina said dryly. “As beautifully designed, surprisingly robust and powerful as your suit is,what need. Do you have need for half the tools within it for a war machine? You use the suit for battle, must it have the ability to hack planes and play AC/DC?”

“You have no sense of style,” Tony snarked. “I mean, that carborundum alloy can’t be beaten for its ability to conduct electricity, but did you have to make it so damn bulky? You look like Robby the Robot with that big bulbous head there.”

“Yes, well, the high-tensile strength of your gold-titanium is impressive, if it were not for how ostentatious the colors you always choose are,” Galina teased. “You look like a woman’s purse.”

As the two continued to do some odd combination of complimenting and critiquing each other, the apartment was almost finished, cranes moving about.

Then, a message came through to them both. “This is freight vessel 24, off the coast of Rio! We’re being attacked by… I don’t know, some sort of gremlins?!”

Tony and Galina didn’t hesitate. The instant the message came through, they lifted into the air.

Flying over the destroyed buildings as tanks, jeeps, and crews roamed the streets below, they soon reached the beach and began to go over open waters.

“Old school rockets, really?” Tony teased while they lifted off.

“Focus, please!” Galina said. Tony imagined she sounded just a bit chagrined through, as her rockets blew fire to push her through the air. “Besides, they work very efficiently.”

“We’ll trade tech later,” Tony promised. Just then, they reached the boat that was being attacked. A large freighter carrying dozens of shipping containers. It was one of many ships that were being used to bring food and supplies to the refugees of Rio.

Right then, as they came close, they were under attack by-

“Little green men?” Tony said in confusion as he came close to the ship.

Indeed, the attackers were dozens of short green creatures shaped like people with long pointed ears and jagged teeth. They were jabbering at each other with abandon, almost as though they wanted to speak but just ended up screaming at each other instead.

Tony took a moment to float over the boat before he raised his hands and fired a repulsor from his palm. One of the goblins was hit hard by the blast, sent flying back into a shipping container and denting it inwards.

The rest looked up at Tony. One raised a gun.

At least, it looked like something in the shape of a gun. It was just a big pipe strapped to a piece of wood. Like, he couldn’t even see any sort of way for it to shoot at all.

So when the goblin started shooting it. In a machine gun hail of bullets. “HAHAHAHA!”

“Wait, what?!” Tony let the bullets bounce off his armor to fly down and punch the goblin, who kept laughing even as he was tossed back. Then Tony grabbed the gun and lifted it up to look at.

“What the hell? It’s just a piece of pipe!”

The other goblins also started shooting at him, despite having the equivalent of rubber bands and string for guns. Tony stared at the weapons shooting at him.

“Good lord, that one has a sponge for a handle. Make sense damn it!”

Galina watched, bemused, as Tony started shooting and punching the tiny laughing goblins with a sense of vengeance, deciding to keep her suspicions on where the goblins had come from to herself for now.

------

Maria Hill/Director of BRIDGE

Thor was speaking with some historians in Canada as part of a fundraiser. It was one of their attempts to make sure the Avengers were seen being a part of things that involved more than just punching things. However, they were also supposed to do research into the Wendigo they currently had in captivity, where it had come from, who it once was, that sort of thing. Except that, despite bringing Bruce Banner along, they had to invite Thor’s friends along for an outing.

------

Thor Odinson/God of Thunder

“HULK SMASH!” Hulk brought his fists down on Thor, who blocked the blow with upraised arms, the ground cratering beneath the God of Thunder.

Thor twisted and wrapped his arms around one of Hulk’s, doing a throw that sent Hulk flying back to smash into a wall.

“Oh, well-executed!” Sif cheered. Then she took a handful of popcorn into her mouth.

“Hulk, try a powerbomb!” Volstagg cheered.

“Powerbomb?” Fandral asked, surprised.

“It is an American wrestling move,” Volstagg grinned. “I tell you Fandral, the world of Midgard has become quite fun now!”

Hogun raised an eyebrow before focusing once more on the spar.

Thor grinned at his friends before turning back to his opponent. He, the Warriors Three, Sif and Bruce had decided to take a break from talking to stuffy academics to practice together. It was something Hulk had requested of Banner, a chance to continue to develop his combat skills and combine the Jiujitsu of Bruce Banner, the strength of the Hulk and the ancient fighting styles of Asgardians made just for those of superhuman power and durability.

So, they had headed out to this pit deep in a decommissioned quarry to duel in peace. Thus far, it had been quite invigorating!

Hulk rolled to his feet and rushed Thor, blocking Thor’s right cross and countering with an uppercut that sent Thor crashing into the stone behind him. Thor grinned.

“Well met! Now take this!”

Thor dropped down with a crushing blow.

“Do it again!” Sif cheered.

Thor and Hulk grinned at her, then went back to trading blows.

------

Maria Hill/Director of BRIDGE

So yeah. That was happening. Thankfully they’d gone somewhere remote, but she still had to find some way to convince them to stop turning big chunks of the landscape into something out of WWE.

The agents of SHIELD were almost a relief in comparison. They were doing a simple investigation. Nothing had come back from them just yet, which she took as a good thing. That group of ‘normal’ people tended to get into the weirdest little missions, but last she heard, Coulson had been having a relatively boring mission. She’d heard about that latter possibly, but for now she could be assured that the swamps of Florida did not have the giant swamp monster that Dial had warned her about.

Then there was Jen Walters. She’d been sent out with a team to investigate a few bank robberies with some marks of superhuman aid. Nothing happening there, but she was on the trail of the robber in charge, an unidentified redhead.

Jennifer Walters. Maria frowned. She’d have to be prepared for that encounter once She-Hulk came back.

Maria still hadn’t told anyone outside the tower about Dial’s disappearance. Not Jennifer, Natasha, Cap, Tony. None of them knew about it and all of them would have some sort of reaction to the news. Possibly a bad one.

Director Hill pushed that problem aside to focus on two new reports. First, Sir Magnus the Knight was reintegrating into society. Their contact in the Vatican had sent the files on his progress.

------

Sir Magnus of the Danes

Magnus stared at the board in front of him. The large man had changed his armor for a sweater and jeans, at least until he could upgrade. Even then, his clothes were just a bit too small, his biceps, pecs and thighs close to bursting through his clothes.

As of right now, Magnus was standing in a warm plush room, reading the markerboard in front of him with a fiercely determined look on his face.

“Sir Magnus?” a tall, thin man dressed in priest's garb came into the room. “I have the files you asked for?”

“Ah, thank you, Father Timeas,” Magnus turned to take the folders out of the priests hand. He opened it and began reading through it, smirking just a bit. “Incredible. In just a few moments, you have managed to hand me more information in a single file than the best of my own time could have compiled in years.”

“The wonders of modern technology,” the priest said pleasantly. “The printer, internet, they’ve all made things much simpler and more complex at the same time.”

“I must agree,” Magnus scowled, his craggy face twisting. “I apologize, by the way. I truly believed that man was in need of aid.”

“There is no need to apologize. We’ve all had to learn about internet scams before,” Timeas pointed at the board. “But then, that isn’t where your expertise lies.”

“Indeed, not,” Magnus looked up at the board, where a single photo stood out. A man, his mouth soaked in blood, tossing a young woman aside. “It is disheartening to know that the skills of a killer are still needed by the church. But I am a man of God. And I will bring God’s vengeance and hatred upon his enemies, in this time as in the last.”

“...You are really intense, you know that?” Timeas said with a calm smile.

“So I’ve been told.”

------

Maria Hill

In the meantime, Fury was handling something for her. It felt odd, having the former Director and one of the most powerful men on Earth head out to run what was essentially a simple errand. But he’d volunteered.

------

Nicholas J. Fury

Fury stood outside a nondescript brick building leaning against a black vehicle, watching as someone exited the house. She walked down the steps from her home with an elegant stride, the walk of a woman who had all the time in the world.

“Nicholas,” the woman looked him up and down. “You have become fat in your retirement.”

“I hope so, Agatha,” Fury smirked. “I hear that's something you’re allowed to do as you get older.”

“Whoever said that is a liar,” the woman had her hair spread outward behind her head, was wearing a purple dress, and had a white shawl over her shoulders, a gnarled and knotted cane made of wood in her left hand. “But to each his own. I assume you already have a room to my specifications?”

“That we do,” Fury leaned away from the car and turned, holding the door for her. “As well as for Ebony.”

Behind the woman, a cat strode forth. With the regality that any cat owner could recognize, the inky black feline walked forward and hopped into the car. The woman didn’t smile, but she had a pleased look in her eyes.

“You’re a good boy, Nicholas.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Harkness,” Fury waved for her to enter, following politely in her wake. Once they were both sat in the back of the car, Ebony resting in Agatha’s lap, Fury nodded to the driver, a caucasian woman who nodded back before beginning to move the car. “You know, even my mother still calls me Fury.”

“Well good for her,” Agatha scoffed. “I suppose it does add to your mystique.”

“You’re one to talk.”

The spymaster and the witch shared a look of mutual respect before turning back, heading to the Avengers Tower.