[A/N]: We finally hit the goal of 200 Power Stones, so here's your second bonus chapter as promised! The next goal is 350 power stones for TWO bonus chapters! Stay tuned and thanks for the support!
Manhattan
The city moved with the chaotic rhythm of impending disaster.
In Times Square, tourists stared at their phones, at news alerts declaring a "credible terrorist threat." Some headed for subway stations. Others kept taking photos, convinced it was a hoax, a publicity stunt, something other than real danger.
In Harlem, Luke Cage stood in the middle of 125th Street, directing traffic with his bare hands. Cars swerved around him. He waved families toward the nearest shelter, his voice carrying over the honking horns. "Move it, people! This ain't a drill! Get underground and stay there!"
In the Financial District, office workers poured onto the streets, thousands of them, still in suits and heels, clutching briefcases like they mattered. The NYPD tried to maintain order. Failed. Someone started running. Then everyone was running.
In District X, the Morlocks moved with practiced efficiency. Callisto stood at the main bunker entrance, counting heads, checking names against her list. Tunnel networks spread beneath the neighborhood like arteries. The work of months manifesting from their paranoia of a people who'd learned that surface safety was an illusion.
At Stark Tower, security guards ushered the last stragglers out. The building's AI, JARVIS, coordinated the exodus with ruthless efficiency. Elevators moved in synchronized patterns. Emergency exits opened at optimal intervals. Within forty minutes, a building that housed hundreds stood empty.
Empty except for the roof.
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Stark Tower - Rooftop
The wind whipped across the open platform. Ninety stories up, Manhattan spread below like a circuit board. The sun blazed overhead as noon was approaching, giving perfect visibility.
Erik Selvig worked with feverish precision. The Tesseract sat in a specialized cradle, energy pulsing in visible waves. Around it, an array of devices formed a ritualistic circle. Cables snaked across the rooftop, connecting to Stark's arc reactor far below. Power flowed upward, converted, amplified, channeled into the cosmic cube.
Selvig's hands moved on autopilot, but inside his skull, his consciousness screamed. A prisoner watching his own body commit atrocities. He felt the sweat, the hammer of his heartbeat, the tears that streaked his cheeks. But control? That belonged to something else now.
'Please,' his thoughts begged. 'Someone stop this. Stop me. I'm so sorry.'
But his mouth said: "Initialization sequence at sixty percent. Portal formation estimated in forty-three minutes."
Loki stood at the edge of the roof, scepter in hand. The wind whipped his hair back. His armor gleamed, gold and green and magnificent.
"Having second thoughts?" Selvig said.
Loki didn't turn. "Second thoughts require conviction in the first. I simply... appreciate the view."
He gestured at Manhattan below. At the tiny figures moving through streets. At the lives unfolding in ignorance.
"Look at them," Loki said softly. "Millions of souls, each convinced of their own importance. Buying coffee. Complaining about traffic. Worrying about promotions and rent and whether they'll die alone. Such small concerns for such fragile creatures."
"They're people," Selvig heard himself say. Loki using his voice like a puppet. "They have value."
"They have chaos," Loki corrected. "They have the illusion of freedom, which they use to destroy themselves and each other. I offer them something better. Purpose and order. A place in something greater than their pathetic individual existence."
"Slavery."
Loki's hand tightened on the scepter. "Peace. There's a difference."
"Is there? Because from where I'm standing, forcing people to kneel looks like slavery dressed up in pretty words."
Loki turned. His expression was complex. Anger and certainty and something else. Something almost like doubt, quickly buried. "You felt it, Selvig. When I held your mind. No doubt, just certainty. Tell me that wasn't better than the constant anxiety of choice."
"It was a lie," Selvig's voice said. "A comfortable lie. But still a lie."
"Truth is what I make it." Loki turned back to the city. "And soon, all of this will kneel. They'll thank me eventually. Once they understand. Once they see that freedom was the chain, and I've broken it."
Down on the street, SHIELD agents established a perimeter six blocks out. Black SUVs formed barriers. Agents in tactical gear redirected foot traffic with firm voices and firmer hands. NYPD officers worked alongside them, faces grim, hands on weapons they hoped they wouldn't need.
News helicopters circled at a mandated distance, cameras trained on Stark Tower. In those helicopters, reporters spoke in urgent tones.
"This is Christine Everhart reporting live from Manhattan, where SHIELD has declared a Level Seven security event. Stark Tower has been evacuated, and authorities are asking all residents within a six-block radius to seek shelter immediately. The nature of the threat remains unclear, but sources suggest..."
"We're getting reports of unusual energy readings from the top of Stark Tower. If you're just joining us, this is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. Emergency services are asking everyone to remain calm and follow evacuation procedures..."
"Some are calling this a terrorist attack. Others are speculating about everything from a nuclear device to some kind of experimental weapon malfunction. What we know for certain is that something is happening, and it's happening now..."
Fury's voice crackled over the intercom. "All personnel, we're detecting energy spikes from Stark Tower. Portal formation imminent. Avengers, you're up."
Steve strapped on his helmet with practiced efficiency. The motion was automatic, muscle memory from a different war. He grabbed his shield, testing the straps, feeling its weight. Familiar. Reliable. A piece of home in this impossible future.
Natasha loaded her weapons with the calm of someone who'd done this a thousand times. Magazines slapped home. Slides racked. Safeties checked. Her face was serene. Her hands were steady. Inside, calculations ran. Exit strategies. Contingencies. Ways to survive what probably couldn't be survived.
Bruce closed his eyes, breathing deeply. In for four counts. Hold for four. Out for four. Meditation techniques from a dozen different traditions. Anything to keep the Other Guy quiet just a little longer. Just until he was needed. His hands still trembled.
Tony's armor assembled around him piece by piece. Servos whined. Repulsors charged. The HUD flickered to life, displaying system readouts, power levels, weapon status. The armor was an extension of himself. Better than himself. Proof that genius could overcome human limitation.
In the hangar, a SHIELD quinjet sat ready, engines idling, ramp down.
Clint was in the pilot seat, running pre-flight checks. His hands moved across the controls with the automaticity of deep training. Muscle memory from before Loki. From when his mind was his own.
"You good?" Natasha asked, strapping in beside him.
"No. But I will be." Clint flipped switches without looking at them. "After I put an arrow through that asshole's eye."
"Just the eye?"
"I'm starting small. Working my way up to creative."
The quinjet's engines spun up. The hangar doors opened to blue sky, clouds, and the glittering sprawl of Manhattan below.
Steve's voice came through comms, steady despite everything. "Avengers. This is it. Whatever comes through that portal, we hold the line. We protect the civilians. We stop this before it spreads beyond Manhattan."
"And if we can't?" Bruce asked.
"Then we die trying."
Tony's laugh crackled through the speakers. "You know, Cap, you really need to work on your motivational speeches."
"Noted. Everyone ready?"
Affirmatives came back, one by one. Voices trying for confidence. Mostly succeeding.
The quinjet launched. The hangar dropped away. Manhattan rushed up to meet them, all glass and steel and millions of lives depending on five people who weren't sure they were enough.
On Stark Tower's roof, the Tesseract pulsed. Energy built in visible waves, distorting the air and bending light. Sky rippled like water as Selvig typed final commands, tears streaming down his face as his hands betrayed him.
"Portal stabilization achieved," his mouth said. "Initiating full-power sequence."
Loki raised his scepter high. "LET MY ARMY MARCH!"
The Tesseract exploded outward in a pillar of blue-white radiance.
Pure cosmic energy lanced skyward. It punched through clouds. Punched through atmosphere. Struck something in the space between spaces, found purchase, and tore.
The universe screamed, and the sky bled.
The portal expanded like a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding. Blue-black depths swirled.
In the streets below, someone looked up.
Then everyone looked up.
A woman dropped her coffee. The cup shattered on the sidewalk, brown liquid spreading like blood. A taxi swerved, jumped the curb, and crashed into a mailbox. The driver stumbled out, staring skyward with his mouth open.
Thousands of Phones came out filming, photographing and streaming live.
On social media, the first posts went live:
"OH MY GOD THERE'S A HOLE IN THE SKY"
"WTF IS THAT ABOVE STARK TOWER???"
"ALIENS ARE REAL AND THEY'RE HERE"
"THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING THIS CAN'T BE REAL"
The first Chitauri soldier emerged from the portal.
Humanoid but wrong. Gray skin stretched too tight over angular bones. Eyes that glowed with bioluminescence. Its mouth opened, revealing rows of needle teeth. It carried a weapon that pulsed with energy, organic and technological merged into something alien.
It saw Manhattan below.
It screamed.
A sound of hunger of a soldier bred for war finally unleashed.
Then another emerged. And another.
They came in waves, riding flying chariots that moved with organic grace. The chariots were alive, biomechanical creatures that shrieked as they dove toward the city. Dozens of Chitauri. Hundreds. Their war cries echoed across Manhattan.
People started running.
Behind the first wave, something massive pushed through the portal.
The Leviathan.
A living ship longer than a city block, wider than a skyscraper. Armor plating covered its body, biomechanical and ancient, scarred from a thousand wars on a thousand worlds. Its mouth was a cavern lined with teeth like steel girders. Smaller Chitauri soldiers clung to its sides, hundreds of them, ready to drop into battle.
It swam through the air. Gravity meant nothing to it and moved like a predator, like something that had evolved to kill, and when it opened its mouth, the sound that emerged wasn't just heard.
It was felt.
A bass note that resonated in the chest cavities. That made hearts stutter. That rattled windows for six blocks.
Car alarms shrieked, and People screamed. The Leviathan roared again, and the sound was hunger made manifest.
The Battle of New York had begun.
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