"Damn it!!"
Tony immediately turned back and chased after the nuclear missile. At the same time, a bolt of purple lightning crashed down behind him, instantly reducing the fighter jet and its pilot to ashes.
"It's over…"
That was the single thought shared by everyone present.
At this moment, they finally understood—people like them, and even all of New York, were nothing more than expendable pieces to those politicians.
Tony glanced back at the spot where the jet had vanished under the lightning.
"Nick Fury, you'd better prepare for the aftermath. Lucas is definitely going to settle accounts with you."
Fury knew it too. That lightning strike was as much a warning from Lucas as anything else. But what choice did he have? All he could do was swallow his anger.
"I don't know what Lucas plans to do next," Fury said. "I've never known, and I've never been told."
That sentence was, in effect, his tacit acceptance of Lucas's future retaliation. Even Fury himself was seething—he wished he could personally put a bullet into those politicians.
Tony didn't respond.
No one did.
Not even Captain America, Steve Rogers, spoke up in defense of the politicians. New York—a megacity with millions of residents—had been so casually abandoned. It was impossible not to feel a chill of shared doom. These people could no longer be described as merely cold-blooded.
Tony caught up to the missile and grabbed onto it, trying desperately to alter its trajectory.
"Natasha, don't close the spatial rift yet," he said quickly. "I've got an idea."
A spark of inspiration struck him. Since he was already carrying a nuke, why not throw it straight into outer space and blow up the Chitauri motherships?
As Tony adjusted the missile's course, everyone else understood his plan.
"Tony," Natasha asked over the comms, "does your armor even support space flight?"
"Uh… probably?" Tony replied vaguely.
In truth, he hadn't considered that at all. His suit didn't exactly come with a proper space-survival system.
As Tony carried the missile closer and closer to the rift, the lightning around him grew increasingly violent and chaotic. Some of it even brushed his armor, but he had no time to worry about that now. He absolutely could not allow the nuke to detonate over New York.
Suddenly, a massive hand descended from above, blocking his path.
Tony looked up—it was Ramuh.
With just two fingers, Ramuh effortlessly pinched the nuclear missile between them.
In his grasp, the missile looked like nothing more than a toothpick. Tony even worried that if Ramuh applied a little too much force, it might explode on the spot.
Before Tony could react, Ramuh moved first.
Clutching the missile, he surged toward the rift at tremendous speed. Countless bolts of lightning followed in his wake. The spatial rift—originally less than a hundred meters wide—was forcibly torn open, ripped apart until it was large enough for Ramuh's colossal body to pass through.
"What is he doing?!"
Everyone looked up.
In the next instant, they understood.
Ramuh plunged straight through the rift. His enormous form vanished from the skies over New York—and with him, the lightning disappeared.
All the violet lightning poured into the rift, leaving New York's sky shrouded only in dark clouds, completely silent.
At that moment, countless people stared up at the rift.
Tony.
Steve.
The surviving civilians of New York.
Even Nick Fury and Hill aboard the Helicarrier.
They all watched as lightning erupted on the other side of the rift—and as the colossal purple figure appeared there as well.
---
In the vacuum of space, Ramuh emerged from the rift, the nuclear missile still in his grasp.
Chitauri soldiers immediately swarmed toward him.
Boom—boom—boom!
Lightning exploded outward without restraint.
Ramuh no longer held back. Thunder like ferocious dragons tore through one Chitauri after another. Even the massive Leviathans were powerless—none of them could withstand the fury of this storm.
In just a few breaths, every single Chitauri soldier was annihilated. Not one survived.
Ramuh then turned his gaze toward the distant Chitauri warships.
With a light flick of his hand, he sent the nuclear missile flying straight toward the central mothership.
However, unlike the scene from the old movie, the nuclear explosion never came.
Instead, when the missile approached within ten meters of the mothership, it melted away like ice under the sun—completely dissolving, without even a spark.
Ramuh saw it clearly.
This was another divergence from the past timeline.
Humanity still arrogantly believed nuclear weapons could solve everything, unaware that the enemy no longer even regarded them as a threat.
Boom—boom—boom!!
With the nuke rendered useless, lightning surged violently around Ramuh once more. Above the Chitauri mothership, a vast field of purple energy began to gather.
As Ramuh swung his staff, thunder answered his command.
The lightning struck.
The mothership's outer shields were pierced instantly, melting away like snow under a blazing sun.
The next bolt hit the ship's core.
In the endless darkness of space, only violet lightning remained—along with the catastrophic explosion of the shattered mothership.
---
Back in New York, several minutes had passed since Lucas crossed the rift.
Suddenly, every remaining Chitauri soldier collapsed where they stood, as if their power source had been cut off. They lay motionless, no different from corpses.
The heroes exchanged glances.
They knew—Lucas had succeeded.
The Chitauri invasion was over.
At the top of Stark Tower, Natasha stood gripping the Mind Stone scepter, staring intently at the rift.
She wasn't alone.
Everyone was watching the rift, waiting for that familiar figure to return.
Five minutes passed.
Lucas still didn't come back.
Gwen and Skye clutched Wanda's unconscious body tightly, their eyes fixed on the rift as tears streamed down their faces. They didn't dare blink, terrified they might miss the moment Lucas reappeared.
Steve looked at Gwen and Skye, the heavy sorrow in his eyes impossible to hide.
At this moment, Lucas was the one and only hero.
He had saved New York.
He had saved Earth.
"Natasha… shut down the Tesseract," Steve said, his voice trembling.
He didn't want to accept it—but he couldn't deny the possibility.
Lucas might not be coming back.
Tony stepped closer to the rift and began scanning the other side. But JARVIS reported only normal cosmic matter—no trace of Lucas at all.
Inside his helmet, Tony's expression was filled with grief.
Lucas was one of the very few people he truly considered a friend. They constantly mocked each other, but that bond—only real friends could understand it.
"Skye," Gwen said quietly, "bring Wanda with me."
Together, Gwen and Skye lifted Wanda.
Skye immediately called the Quinjet down. As the hatch opened, the two of them carried Wanda inside.
"What are you doing?! Stop!!"
Steve rushed forward to block them. He knew exactly what they intended to do—and he absolutely could not allow such recklessness.
Skye's face turned cold.
She released a surge of shockwaves from her hands, blasting Steve away. He was thrown backward, crashing into a nearby car.
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