Hawk stood frozen on the rooftop, his mind a maelstrom of reeling thoughts. The raw, cosmic power thrumming in his veins was still a foreign sensation, and now this. He stared, awestruck and horrified, at the sky above Manhattan. It was no longer the familiar ceiling of the world; it was a gaping, bleeding wound. A ghostly blue light, unnatural and malevolent, pulsed from a central point, tearing a jagged rift in the fabric of reality itself, revealing a vista of infinite, starless black beyond. The edges of the portal crackled with unstable energy, the sound like tearing silk amplified a million times.
His first, dazed thought was a staggering leap of logic born from the memory of his own reality-bending punch. Did I do this? The question was a cocktail of terror and a terrifying, nascent pride.
But the moment the first alien shape spilled from the rift, the illusion shattered. Cold, hard memory from another life slammed into place with the force of a physical blow.
2012. The Stark Tower. The Tesseract. The Space Stone.
The Chitauri Invasion.
The relief of not being personally responsible for the apocalypse was instantly erased by the cold, gut-wrenching dread of knowing exactly which apocalypse had just begun. This wasn't a distant news report. This was here. Now.
The rift vomited forth the invasion. It wasn't a trickle; it was a deluge, a river of serrated metal and grotesque alien flesh pouring from the wound in the sky. Chitauri soldiers, their bodies encased in dark, biomechanical carapaces, rode sleek, single-person skiffs that looked like armoured space-chariots. Their engines whined with a high-pitched, grating frequency that set teeth on edge and promised pain. They were a swarm of biomechanical locusts, and Earth was their harvest.
BOOM!
The first shot was fired. A brilliant beam of energy lanced out from the swarm, striking the glass curtain wall of a Manhattan skyscraper. The glass didn't just shatter; it vaporized, and a heartbeat later, the entire floor exploded outward in a shower of fire and debris.
That single shot was the signal. The swarm descended.
"Attack! For the Great Titan!" "Invasion! Cleanse this world!" "Kill them all!"
The alien roars, a mix of guttural clicks and metallic hisses, were a chorus of doom. After emerging from the wormhole, they broke off into squadrons with terrifying efficiency. Some dove towards the canyon-like streets of Manhattan, their energy weapons strafing everything that moved. Others gained altitude, banking hard and streaking towards Brooklyn and the Bronx.
And a sizable squadron was heading directly for Queens.
From his rooftop vantage point, Hawk had a panoramic view of the city's descent into chaos. He saw the distant plumes of smoke rising from Manhattan, heard the symphony of destruction—the roar of alien engines, the thunder of explosions, and a rising wave of human screams that grew louder with each passing second. Below him, the streets of Jackson Heights erupted into pandemonium. People poured out of buildings, their faces masks of terror, scattering in every direction as the first Chitauri skiffs screamed overhead. Cars swerved and crashed. The ordered world of moments ago had become a slaughterhouse.
The wails of the dying, the frantic shouts of the fleeing, the strange, clicking cries of the invaders—at this moment, the entire city of New York was plunged into a nightmare.
Hawk's first instinct, the one honed by seventeen years of disciplined survival, screamed at him. Run. Hide. Disappear. He took a single step back towards the fire escape, his body ready to retreat into the anonymous safety of his apartment.
But he stopped. The power humming in his veins, the awakened Cosmo, sang a different song. It was a song of battle, of fire, of glorious, terrible power. The survivalist in him wanted to hide, but the newly born warrior, the Saint, wanted to fight. It was a primal, undeniable urge to test himself, to know the true measure of the power he had bled for over a thousand days. This wasn't heroism. It was a need.
He turned back, his gaze sweeping over the chaos, and stopped on the approaching wave of Chitauri.
One of the soldiers, banking low over the rooftops, saw him. In a sea of scurrying, panicked prey, Hawk was an anomaly. He was standing still, a solitary, defiant figure against the backdrop of fire and smoke.
The Chitauri's snake-like eyes, hidden behind a dark alloy faceplate, met his. In Hawk's azure blue eyes, a single, brilliant star seemed to twinkle. For the alien, it was a challenge. For a predator, a motionless target was an irresistible provocation.
With a sharp, guttural cry, the soldier broke formation, peeling away from its squad. Its skiff tilted, diving directly towards Hawk's rooftop.
The attack was immediate and brutal. A destructive, blue-white energy gathered at the front of the aircraft, coalescing into a sizzling ball of death before lancing towards him.
Hawk's new senses screamed a warning. He didn't see the attack coming so much as he felt its killing intent. His pupils contracted. As the energy blast slammed into the concrete where he had been standing, he was already moving, a fluid shadow against the exploding debris.
BOOM!
The rooftop erupted, sending chunks of concrete and tar flying. The Chitauri soldier, seeing Hawk reappear unharmed on the other side of the crater, let out an enraged hiss and opened fire without reservation.
"Bang, bang, bang, bang!"
"BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!"
The rooftop became a warzone. The Chitauri soldier unleashed a furious barrage, strafing the entire surface with energy blasts. Debris splattered like shrapnel. Dust and smoke filled the sky. The ventilation shaft he had leaned against was vaporized. The water tank was shredded into twisted metal.
Hawk moved. He weaved through the storm of destruction, the initial, flustered shock giving way to a cold, razor-sharp calm. Saints are born for war. The phrase echoed in his mind, and he now understood its truth. His body and mind were adapting at an impossible rate. The chaos wasn't confusing anymore; it was a symphony of data. He could feel the trajectory of each blast, sense the rhythm of the soldier's firing pattern. The fear was burning away, refined into pure, exhilarating focus.
"CLICK!"
The crisp, mechanical sound cut through the roar of explosions. The soldier, still firing, paused, looking down at its weapon console. The energy clip was empty.
It was the only opening Hawk needed.
The wind howled. Before the Chitauri could react, Hawk ripped a jagged, plate-sized piece of the shredded water tank from the roof and, with a surge of nascent Cosmo, hurled it like a discus. The steel plate spun through the dust-filled air and slammed into the side of the skiff with the force of a cannonball.
CRUNCH!
The aircraft swerved violently. The Chitauri soldier, caught off guard, was thrown from its seat, tumbling through the air before crashing hard onto the shattered rooftop. It landed with a sickening thud but scrambled to its feet with unnatural resilience. It drew a smaller, pistol-like energy weapon from its hip, its green eyes glowing with cold fury.
"Hiss-klick-chaa!" The soldier made an indescribable sound, a mix of a battle cry and a signal to its allies.
Hawk understood. He was on a timer.
The rooftop was a ruin. More than half of it had collapsed, revealing gaping holes that plunged down three floors into the apartments below. But no one on the street noticed. New Yorkers, veterans of chaos, knew rule number one: when danger appears, you run, and you don't look back.
The dust began to settle, revealing the two combatants in their shattered arena.
The Chitauri soldier, its alien face a mask of hatred, raised its weapon. A cold light flashed in its ghostly green eyes as it pulled the trigger.
"Die, human!"