Frost

Chapter 93

Blood and ash

Chaos reigned over the battlefield. Nothing but pure chaos and Ivy was in the middle of it. No matter which direction she looked, the Outriders were everywhere, and everywhere they were being fought by her allies. Sweat ran down her forehead as she stabbed her knife through the head of another Outrider and let its lifeless body fell to the ground. She quickly pulled her knife out of its head and rolled to the side as another Outrider tried to throw itself at her. Dust blew up as she landed on the ground. Ivy straightened onto her knees and braced her palms on the ground as the Outrider ran at her again. Ice escaped her palms and slowly spread across the ground, freezing everything in its path, including the Outriders coming towards her.

Ivy quickly straightened up and threw her knife at one of the creatures leaping toward her. The knife flew right through the creature's chest, sending the creature crashing to the ground, dead. She bent down to pick up her knife, her body tensing in warning as she saw a small pack of Outriders gather around her. They circled her and bared their long fangs at her, drool or slime running down their mouths. Ivy calmly stood up and put her knives back into her thigh holster. Her fingertips coated with ice and she waited for one of them to make the first move. When the first outrider jumped after her, she stuck her arms out and let the cold that had accumulated inside her flow out of her. The cold ate through everything, skin, bone, muscle, and everything the Outriders had on them. It left nothing but a few splinters of ice lying where once the Outriders had surrounded her.

A flash of blue suddenly appeared in front of her and Pietro smirked at her. His suit, which he had worn in Sokovia, had been improved by Tony, giving him a little more security and flexibility. His hair was slightly messed up from all the fast jetting back and forth, and sweat mixed with the dust on his face. "Feel like having a little fun?" he asked with a grin, and before she could answer, he had already lifted her up in his arms. He speeded off with her in his arms, but to Ivy everything around her seemed to be in slow motion. She understood what he was trying to do and froze every Outrider they speeded past, so when they stopped a trail of Outriders frozen to death stretched out behind them.

"Huh" Ivy looked at the devastation she and Pietro had caused. "We could have come up with that idea sooner." Pietro nodded with a grin before his gaze briefly wandered to the side. "Yeah" he laughed nervously "That's a great way to make Barnes give me a death stare." Ivy followed his gaze to find Bucky stare warningly Pietro, or rather at the hand that was folded around Ivy's thigh and not far from her ass. "Lucky for you I'm stronger than him" she smirked and patted him on the shoulder encouragingly. "Now move your ass muscles so I can freeze some more Outriders." Pietro grinned at her before he started moving and they repeated their path of cold death a few times.

~°~

Ivy fought back to back with Bucky at her side against the Outriders. Bucky had his machine gun in his hands while she fought with her knives. The two had each other's backs and moved as one, as if they had trained all their life to fight alongside each other. Yet the last time they had fought like this was almost 73 years ago. Their muscles seemed to still remember it, though, so Ivy and Bucky almost didn't have to say anything as they fought side by side. Ivy, meanwhile, had stopped counting how many outriders she had killed today. No matter how many she killed, the number of Outriders did not diminish; on the contrary, it felt like there were more and more and more Outriders. So the number of Outriders did not seem to decrease, while the fatigue of Ivy's powers and muscles started to make itself visible. Not only from her, over the whole battlefield the exhaustion of the Avengers and the warriors from Wakanda seemed to make itself visible.

Bucky interlocked his elbows with hers mid-battle and Ivy pressed her back against his as she placed her knives back into their holders. Bucky leaned forward and she used her feet to push herself off the ground. She felt her feet fly forward through the air over Bucky's body and when her feet were gone over his head, they let go of each other's elbows, sending Ivy flying through the air.  She accumulated a lot of cold in her hands and released it when her feet touched the ground. The blast of cold destroyed the Outriders who had been standing dangerously close to Bucky and Ivy, yet the nearest Outriders immediately moved up. "Any other ideas?" asked Ivy as she and Bucky backed each other up again. Bucky clutched his machine gun while Ivy clutched her knives tightly again.