This chapter is an entry for the Round 5 of Fanfic Bootcamp.

Fandom : The Avengers (Hawkeye)

Unlike me, troubles don't seem to know when to retire.

"What's this, Natasha?" I asked curiously, glancing around the vast wheat field. "You want some cereal?"

She slapped my upper arm harshly, casting me an alerting look. "You saw what the TVs are frantic about."

Someone's not in a laughable mood.

"Yeah. Bloody asphalts and stacking corpses. Gross."

"Avengers reported, so far, those people didn't realize their actions, since they barely responded when they're called or mentioned. They're like incomplete zombies, just undead."

Is it possibly brain control? Who would've developed and implemented it on a worldwide mass? How could it spread? And why aren't we infected?

Those questions poured out of my mouth as soon as Nat stopped talking. Unfortunately, she can answer none. She said this field is the key for those locked mysteries.

"Our satellite screens at the New Avengers Facility showed unidentified signal from this field. Tony, being a bustling man he is, asked us to investigate."

"Otherworldly signal?"

"No. But advanced enough. The creator must've been as..."

"Insane as Tony?" I joked, earning another slap from her.

The wheat stalks reached our shoulders as we passed the narrow manmade path. Nat revealed a tracking device from her jacket—another Tony's invention, presumably.

"So... How many unaffected countries left?"

"Six. All remote countries with not much people, including the one we're at. And," a shrill beep from the device interrupted her. Tony, within his iron mask, appeared on a part of the palm-sized screen.

"You should revise it to five. Singapore's been hit."

His news stopped us midways, tensed as we rooted on our spots.

"The aftermath to this disaster, the remaining funeral owners will be billionaires, like me." I could imagine him smirking nonchalantly behind that flat mask. "Breaking news' over. Anyway, have you found something?"

Nat shook her head briefly, a solemn expression on her face. "This is getting ridiculous. Who might've done this?"

"Someone. Or some group of psychopathic maniacs. Do a live report when you're there, okay?" And the connection severed one-sidedly, returning the screen to its original state.

We're getting closer to the blinking red dot.

Nat exhaled heavily as she clutched the device tautly. She allowed me to walk ahead of her since my eyes are better than hers.

No offense. There's a reason they codenamed me Hawkeye.

"Stop. Turn right." And we swerved right, through another crowd of stalks. Getting nearer to our target makes me nervous, and I readied my bow, just in case.

With this minimized sight range, it's hard to determine something lurking nearby.

A startling force gripped my elbow sharply, halting me from advancing. I almost yelped until I realized it was Nat, scowling in annoyance.

I don't need her words to understand that we're near the target already.

Slowly, I stepped forward, brushing the stalks aside with barely a sound.

As soon as we came into an opening, I sprung forward, landing to stalkless dirt. I turned around quickly, searching for any signs of a living besides Nat and I. When I found none, my attention landed on a complicated device—like a combination of a printer and a computer, also equipped with an antenna—sitting on the center of the area.

Nat approached it with crumpled fists on her sides. That leaves me being the guard, eyeing the situation around. I stationed myself behind her crouching back, sharpening all my senses.

"Tony. We found it." She said lowly to her device, directing the screen to the odd one we found. "You're right, it's manmade. Oh wait, here's a pasted message."

She ripped it from the screen harshly, and palmed it, reading for herself. Curiosity provoked me to peer over her back, reading the jumbled mess inwardly.

Nat told Tony this is a bad news, which is an understatement. This isn't bad news anymore—it's dire.

Fragile part of the body—brain.
Rogers and Romanoff, answer me—who are the sinners?
It will be just you and us, Avengers—NSK, 12:12.
Dare yourselves for a one on one.
Anonymous and Avengers.
Years of hiding, and now hid from.

Shucks, what mad extremists.

"NSK is an acronym for New Sokovia. Those smartasses wrote a hidden code—Friday means tomorrow. 12:12 possibly refers to the hour, since December 12th is still months from now. It's barely Halloween."

Nat doesn't seem to acknowledge my deadpan, but she does acknowledge my explanation by propping her chin and stared seriously at the shuddering device.

A paper flowed out of it, written in the same messy scribbles.

"It's not the time for stupid riddles!" Nat pulled her red strands off, grinding her teeth until they clacked.

"From this device, you'll learn that Tony Stark may not be the most brilliant smartass on Earth. From this device too, you'll learn that not everyone accepts your powers."

Suddenly, Wanda's face popped on Nat's screen, looking panicked with a bleeding gash on her temple. "They're getting wilder! They might've killed me," and with a frantic gasp, she disappeared.

Nat and I simultaneously facepalmed, getting persistent headaches at this uncontrollable chain of events.

Maybe this is an ideal interpretation of apocalypse. Instead of meteors, normal humans' brains are controlled one-sidedly, resulting in their own deaths. Instead of deadly viruses or infectious zombies, they killed each other, unaware.

Instead of alien or otherworldly invasions...

Another crackling from Nat's device and the unmasked Iron Man returned. "Give me the intact details of the outers. I need to figure out how to disarm it before it affects you two."

Affect? What does Tony mean?

"Tony, you're kidding, right? Aren't we supposed to be..."

"Invulnerable? Nah, no one except they are. Those unworthy breeds."

His response got me frantic and restless. Forget guarding this area, I have to survive! My family and I can't be affected!

"Get a screwdriver and unscrew..."

"No time for that!" I grabbed a harmless arrow from my quiver and forced its tip into the screw, spinning it as hurried as I could. "Tony! There are... Eight switches with different colors! Eight boiling serums! And a crowd of cables!"

"Be detailed, dumbass. Or we're all done for. Almost half of us are in this country, one of the last unaffected five. Don't get our powers to waste..."

"Alright, alright! Shut up, Tony!"

Argh, shucks! If we survive, they challenge us in a copied version of Hunger Games. If we died, then that's it.

Maybe Ultron is way more reasonable to deal with than this.

Nat crouched next to me and directed the screen to the odd device's interns. Tony's unclear and scientific murmurs slipped past my ears since I can't bear filling my brain with more panic-worthy information.

"So that's how it spread so fast. Air. No wonder they admitted my brain's lower than theirs. Listen, you two. Half of the Avengers' fates are counting..."

"Yes, we damn know, Tony! So get this over with now!" Nat said, face blushing in anger.

"Sorry, that's how I tend to think. By scolding, the wires in my head..."

Whatever the outcome is, hopefully at least one of us survives to stop those mental psychopaths from recreating Earth and its societies.