Chapter Two: Black as Night

[The Mighty Thor]

Out of frustration Paige shoved her hands into the oversized pockets that hung from her uniforms belt. When she first came to be a member of this ragtag group, their holographic assistant supplied her with the belt, and a few handy items within it as well. She walked along beside Victoria and Tessa up the stone steps, and absentmindedly fumbled with the contents of her pockets as she did. But as her hands brushed over her supplies, she found a folded up piece of paper that she was quite sure had not been there before. Paige reached for the mysterious note, but before she could pull it from her pocket she found herself distracted by Barry, running off alone as was quickly becoming his norm. Telekinetically, Victoria reached out to grab the boy before he found himself in more trouble than he could handle, but her reflexes must have been off just a hair. Because a hair was all Barry needed to vanish into the building, just barely hearing Husk’s words of warning.

On the roof above, Spider-man now found himself ahead of Beast and crawling into the shattered window that once hung above Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum. As he cleared the window, his spider-sense began to buzz. It wasn’t the sort of buzz that warned of immediate danger, but he knew that the place was not safe. Quickly, he relayed that information to Hank who was following the Spider’s lead very closely, allowing Beast to then communicate the same warning below to Sage. Word traveled quickly throughout the team, and everyone took the advice to heart. Especially the Surfer, who was already on edge due to his cosmic awareness. Barry was the only one out of the loop, since his impetuous entrance had left him isolated from the team: a folly that he would soon regret.

Scanning the entirety of the building with the thermal array built into her glasses, Sage came up empty. The only heat signatures registering were the two normal ones coming from the top floor and the super hot signature that Barry’s body gave off somewhere near the middle of the structure. Finding the lower floors devoid of anything other than demolished furniture, broken down walls and mountains of torn and tattered books, Sage and Victoria led the remaining three members of their team up the stairs in order to meet up with Barry. He was moving much slower now, apparently interested in something not far away. With telepathy their only source of communication, Victoria reached out and contacted the boy. His only response was, ”You guys gotta see this.”

Above, Beast heard the message loud and clear through his mental connection with Victoria and ushered Spider-man in the right direction. His glasses were also set to view the thermal spectrum, and it didn’t take long for him and his arachnid companion to find Barry’s location. By the time they arrived at the doorway to the interior room that the young speedster had discovered, Spider-man’s spider-sense was going nuts. He crouched into a ready position as the rest of the team came up behind them, making sure to be ready for anything. Within the room, now facing his teammates, Barry’s face displayed a look of excitement and joy as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating something of interest behind him. “Ain’t it cool?” he asked, as he stepped to one side, revealing an ornate sarcophagus laying in the middle of an otherwise empty room. Outside, on the horizon and well beyond the view of any of the heroes , the last sliver of sunlight disappeared. And with that, before their very eyes, the lid to the stone coffin slid aside and from it stepped a man clad head to toe in red, with horns atop his cowl and seemingly unending stains of blood covering the front of his crimson costume. His icy gaze fell upon the heroes and with a snarl he asked, “I guess Frank has called in the cavalry? That’s fine, lets do this.”