36 Tension, Battle Prep, The Line-up

After reaching the garage; Dan, Nick Fury, Phil Coulson, and Clint Barton all decided to just go ahead in Dan's car. Tony didn't have much room for passengers in his car, so Yauheni was the only passenger. As both cars left the garage, several other vehicles fell in behind them, all activating 'Stealth Mode', and it was as if it was only the two cars driving along the road. Dan was taking deep breaths, which Fury noticed immediately.

"This is your first time in a combat situation, isn't it? I heard about you from Yauheni, to think you were that guy who gave me that ring a couple of months ago. I guess you must've awakened your own powers a little later than others, don't worry, everyone's scared the first time around. Now then, let's go take those Hand motherf*ckers down!"

Dan was calmer now, but he was still on edge, his superhuman senses were starting to pick up on the approaching danger. "Looks like we've got company, it's probably a scouting party."

Immediately after Dan made that announcement, the other three men were immediately on alert. Clint took out his bow and put the window down. Fury and Coulson had also drawn their weapons. Fury brought out some kind of communication device, "Fury to all units, this is a Code Red situation. We've got hostiles inbound. Maintain visual on your sectors and prepare for engagement. Standby for further instructions."

Just as he was about to give those instructions, around 30 black shapes materialised out of nowhere, Dan immediately stopped the car, and jumped out. "NOW!"

Everyone immediately opened fire, and the ambush team, taken completely off-guard, were almost all mowed down, some of them immediately took cover. Dan raced towards the nearest ninja and lashed out, trying to hold back as much as he could. The man was still launched backwards into another car, denting it. The man then coughed up blood before falling limp, Dan froze up for a moment, but quickly snapped out of it. DAMN! And I held back too!

I haven't had the time to adjust to my growing strength, oh well, I can't dwell on it now. Barton's arrows dispatched most of the remaining ninjas, and Dan took care of the rest of them, this time holding back even more. He then rushed back to his car and got in, and drove off a little faster. Everyone else seemed to get the message, and fell in behind him.

-- Tony Stark POV -- 

Tony watched the events unfold with a growing sense of panic, he watched Dan b*tch slap one of their attackers into the side of a car. Tony winced, Is that guy dead? F*CK! I knew it would be bad, but this is insane, we haven't even started the real battle! Get yourself together Tony Stark, you can't back out now! It was his turn to start taking deep breaths, Yauheni gave him a rare smile, "Don't worry Mr. Stark, you're safe here with us.

I hope that your new invention will help us, I have faith in you!"

Tony nodded his thanks, he was still processing everything, and the words just weren't coming out yet. That's Yauheni for you, he's never been the overly social type but somehow, he's a natural-born leader. This is just the beginning, it's time to step-up and show the world that you don't need superpowers to become a superhero. 

-- End Tony Stark POV --

Nick Fury turned to Dan as they continued to drive to their destination, "first time?"

Dan nodded, "yeah, I've never had to kill someone before, I'm not sure how to feel about it. I've always faced opponents whose strength is similar to mine, and now that I'm facing normal people, my strength is too much, I held back too."

Fury remained silent for a few moments but it was Clint who spoke up. "The first time is always the hardest, you just have this almost out-of-body experience. You can't help but refuse to believe you've just taken a life, it takes a strong will to keep moving forward, you'll be alright. I can already tell that you have the willpower for this kind of work."

"Thanks, I guess, it's just that I don't want to get used to killing too much. But I guess that'll be inevitable in the upcoming battle."

It didn't take long for them to reach their destination after that, upon arrival, they were all surprised when Tony started donning a suit of armour. Dan knew what this was, this was the project that Tony had been working on. They had all heard that Tony planned to use his technology in order to become a "hero" himself. Tony approached Dan after putting the helmet on, "soooo? What do you think? Is it everything you thought it would be?"

Dan snickered, and tried to hide his laughter, but still, he was impressed. "Well, it's not everything I thought it would be..."

Dan paused for dramatic effect, and Tony seemed a little deflated once more. "But it's only Mark-I, you can't be expected to get everything right with the first version. Maybe you could try to automate the entire process of taking the armour on and off, you never know when that could come in handy. Please tell me that it can at least shoot laser beams!"

(A/N: While Tony's suit is much more high-tech, it's still Mark-I, it'll become a lot more OP in the near future.)

"Automation, that's a good idea actually, no laser beams just yet, but it does have an entire armoury hidden inside it."

The two of them continued their back-and-forth for a little while before they were interrupted by the arrival of Angela and an entourage of familiar faces. "Hey Dan! It's good to see you, it looks like you became a lot stronger since we last met."

"Hey Angela, it's been a while, it's great to see you too, looks like you were more than just a little successful!"

Dan looked around to see quite the gathering of heroes. Of course, there were the ones he'd met already, including Luke, Jessica, Peter Grange, Mercedes "Misty" Knight, and Daniel Rand. Although he'd never met the other heroes present, he knew all of them all too well from the days that he'd only idolised them. Luke and the others had proceeded to the meetup area ahead of them, since they were also able to make use of shortcuts. 

Dan started to list all of them mentally, while also taking note of each of their abilities, Angela really gathered quite the roster this time. From left to right, they were as follows:

______________________

Silver Sable (Silver Sablinova), Nova (Richard Rider), Nomad (Jack Monroe), Firestar (Angelica Jones), Justice (Vance Astrovik), Speedball (Robbie Baldwin). Darkhawk (Christopher Powell), Dagger (Tandy Bowen), Cloak (Tyrone Johnson), and The Shroud (Maximillian Coleridge).

______________________

She's done an amazing job, even without the system info window, I know who all of them are. Dan was aware that Daniel was looking at him with barely disguised astonishment. He realised why suddenly, Daniel was probably picking up on the massive amount of Chi contained within Dan. I wonder if I should tell him it's over 9000. Dan walked over to greet the newly assembled heroes, and decided to show off a bit by creating an aura of Chi around him.

Everyone suddenly looked tense, aside from Angela herself, "relax, he's just showing off a little."

The other heroes relaxed after hearing this, some of them still looked a little wary. Dan smiled, reassuringly, and allowed the aura to fade away. "Hey everyone, it's an honour to meet all of you, I only got these powers recently, so I guess that fanboy side of me still hasn't faded away."

They all smiled after hearing that, some of them looked a little embarrassed. Max was the first to speak up, "you must be Dan, Angela hasn't stopped talking about you since yesterday. I must admit, you're a lot more impressive than I thought you'd be, was that Chi? I only recognise it since I've seen Danny use it, but never to that degree."

"Yes, it was Chi, I can use it externally too, you'll probably see its full capabilities very shortly. I'm sure that you've all heard of Mr. Stark over here, he's here to make his debut despite prior warnings about this being an active combat situation."

Angelica frowned in Tony's direction, "that idiot, well, can't say we never warned him!"

Tony had taken his helmet off and he walked over as confident as ever. "What was that? I'm handsome and amazing and you totally can't resist me? Awe, thanks, I already know that though."

Tandy rolled her eyes after hearing that, "yeah, sure, let's go with that if it helps to inflate your Burj Khalifa-sized ego anymore that is."

Tony looked over at her with a look of mock-betrayal on his face, "oh, how could you? After we've known each other all these years?"

Tandy now had a deadpan expression on her face, "sure, all these years, you've probably forgotten all about me, why don't you leapfrog to your next woman while you're at it."

Angela quickly stepped in between the two, "that's enough of that, you can take care of your little lover's tiff later, alright?"

Tony looked genuinely annoyed this time, whilst Tandy just rolled her eyes again. Daniel walked over to Dan, looks like he's more than a little curious about my usage of Chi, I'll have to tell him about it at some point. Just as Daniel was about to ask Dan about how he was able to use Chi, Dan suddenly became more alert. "Looks like they've arrived, and there's a lot of them at that."

Everyone immediately became serious, and as Dan looked around him, he sighed. "They're planning on ambushing us on all sides, I'm sensing some weird presences among them too."

Tony immediately donned his helmet after taking several deep breaths. All of the other heroes looked prepared now. Richard gave Dan a grateful look before preparing himself for the situation at hand. Dan watched in awe as a multitude of different powers were put on display. From Daniel's fists lighting up to Tandy materialising energy-shaped daggers in her hands. It wasn't long before they began to hear the approaching footsteps from almost all directions.

That's all for today, I'll be back to regularly posting 2 chapters very soon, and this chapter ended up being a little longer too. Also, thank you for all the Power stones! I may start stockpiling chapters in the future so that I can release an extra chapter if this story reaches a certain amount of stones. I won't introduce this system until I decide to start stockpiling chapters though!

I'm looking forward to hearing from AKISU, just your friendly neighbourhood grammar checker.

Update: For those of you who have read up to this point, thank you. I am currently beginning to stockpile chapters, I MAY or MAY NOT start a Patreon for early access chapters at some point. After I finish stockpiling however, I will start to release 1 stockpiled chapter per day, and will write another chapter to add to the stockpile to replace it. This means that I will introduce the bonus chapters system that so many authors use soon.