After the explosion hit, everything went to hell in a handbasket. Hulk got loose, Stark and Rodgers went to fight off the intruders while fixing the engines, and I after shaking the cobwebs from my head, I decided that stopping Hulk was the best course of action in this instance.
I know what you are thinking, HELP PHIL! SAVE HIM!
I will. Just hold on a sec.
Hopping down the hole Widow and Banner fell into, I can see Widow trapped underneath some steel girders and Banner trying not to Hulk out. Walking up to Banner, I slowly cast an old calming enchantment I learned for this exact purpose.
"Animæquior esto." I chant while holding his shoulders. "Animæquior esto."
Slowly the green left his skin and his muscles stopped bulging as he slowly calmed back down to his regular self.
Patting him on the back as he passes out, I walk over to Widow and easily lift the girder off her leg and help her up.
"What did you do?" She asks. Obviously about Banner.
"That isn't important right now. For now, let's get the hell out of here and stop Loki." I reply as I pick up Bruce Fireman style and jump back into the lab. Setting him down against a wall that wasn't broke, I call Fury over comms.
"Fury. Banner is no longer a threat at this time. Send Thor to check on Loki if you would. I'll meet him there. Don't send anyone but us." I say over the comms as Widow stares at me in interest. "Widow. Hawkeye is probably on board. Find him and take him out. Blunt trauma to the cranium should jolt his subconscious to fight back against Loki's control. If that doesn't work, shock him."
I of course I didn't tell them how I knew that. As far as they wer concerned it was just because I was smart and that was a theory. I will probably get asked a whole ton of questions later, but as of now? They will have to let it lie.
Taking off my shirt and pants in quick succession to reveal my light Goblin Armor, I slip on my mask, setting it in position before it attaches to my face, allowing it to act like a second skin. Running from the room, I am quick to meet up with Thor outside of the room holding Loki's cell.
Opening the door, we immediately see Loki stepping out of the cage.
"NOO" Thor yells as he is about to lunge at the, probably fake, Loki.
Grabbing his shoulder, I barely stop him from barreling into a trap. Glaring at me in anger, he throws me aside and rushes in anyway.
"Damn it Thor!" I yell.
"Good. You are smarter than I realized Mr. Osborn."
Turning around, I see the Silvertongue himself standing next to the console that could drop Thor over 3000 feet.
"It's Doctor actually. You won't be getting away with this." I say as I pull a few Razorbats from my belt. "You can't win."
"Oh but I already have, Doctor." He says, sarcastically saying Doctor. " Your team is in tatters, your flying fortress is falling from the sky, and you have lost. And I have won…"
Suddenly I felt the scepter stab through my back into my chest.
"NOOO!" I hear Thor yell.
Loki's second illusion dissipated as the real Loki yanked the scepter from my chest, allowing me to fall to my knees. Damn that hurt. The scepter had found a chink in the Adamantine scales I had used to make this suit, so it was able to actually stab me.
I should have seen it coming.
Walking over to the console again, he gestures to his staff to Thor and flips open the switch that would drop Thor.
Slowly getting up, I get his attention.
"You are at a disadvantage."
"How are you alive? I stabbed through your heart?" Loki asks as he sees me completely healed. "No Matter. Midgardians deemed us as Gods… Let's see if they were right?" Loki says as he hits the button to drop Thor.
"NO!" I yell. Rushing forward, I duck under a swing from his scepter and quickly strike at his side. Catching the next sweep with his scepter, I yank it out of his hand before spinning around and striking him upside the head as hard as I could without killing him.
That was… almost too easy.
BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Rolling to the side, and dropping the scepter, I see a group of six mercenaries come in, guns blazing.
Fun.
Rushing forward, I flip over them all and drop a few knockout gas pellets before landing next to the door. Smirking at them, I close and seal the door, locking them in. The only way out at this point was physically jumping out of the hole that Thor went out of. On the bright side, I didn't see any parachutes, so that would make things more difficult for them to escape.
I'm honestly hoping they are stupid enough to escape. Even if Loki isn't there, the portal will still appear and require us as Avengers to stop him. But, if Loki is there, it will allow me to continue my plans and even speed a few of them up tenfold. That is part of why I left the scepter. In Avengers, the scepter is needed to shut down the portal, if it isn't at the fight then it would be impossible to close the portal. Surprisingly enough, Loki unintentionally held the key to his demise in his hands. If both he and the staff are stuck here in SHIELD custody, it would be impossible to stop him.
Call it working for the greater good or something.
Hearing the hole open again through the door behind me, I smirk. It looks like they were stupid enough.
"Fury. Loki has escaped and Thor is currently disposed of."
"What happened?"
"Loki tricked us. He made some sort of illusion and Thor got trapped in the cell. Loki dropped him then vanished."
Thank god the security systems were shot by Hawkeye. Otherwise my story would never hold up.
"Fury? Might I make a suggestion? Use someone close to the team to act as someone to fight for. Coulson for example. I'm sure he wouldn't mind giving up a card from his collection or two to get bloody to sell the story." I say as I head to the deck, knocking out and mercenaries I find faster than they could blink.
"What?"
"You heard me. This team is a time bomb, just waiting to explode. They have nothing to fight together for. They would as soon ditch each other as help each other. Using someone close to them to make them fight, someone to Avenge, they will fight. They will become a team."
"I hope you know what you are doing." He says over the comms before hanging up.
"You and me both." I say as I duck under a mercs swing, striking him in a nerve cluster on his side. Picking up Banner who had just woken up from probably the best sleep he has had in a while, we both head to the bridge.
If Fury heeds my suggestion, things should go as planned.
/
It had been thirty minutes since the mercenaries broke into the Hellicarier, and things were finally starting to move forward. Currently Steve, Stark, and Banner were sitting around the main conference table with me and Fury standing. I was wearing my spare armor as my first suit was damaged by loki's scepter. I need to look into self-repairing armor… maybe nanobots? Something to think about.
"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket." Fury says as he tosses a couple of Phil's cards on the table. How he was able to convince Phil to get rid of them I will never know, but I figure as Nick Fury you had privileges. "I guess he never did get you to sign them. We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, the location of the Cube, Banner, Thor... I got nothing for you.I lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming. Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract.I never put all my chips on that number, though because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea; Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes…"
Sighing in slight defeat, he starts to walk away.
"Well… it's an old-fashioned notion anyway."
As soon as he left, Stark stormed off with Steve following.
"Come on Bruce… We should make sure they don't kill each other." I sigh as I get up and start following them, Bruce just silently nodding and following me.
"-as out of his league. He should have waited. He should have..." I heard stark say. They were both standing in the room where Loki's cell once was.
"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony." Steve says to the agitated Stark.
"Right, I've heard that before." Stark snarked at the Captain.
"Is this the first time you lost a soldier?" Captain asks.
"We are not soldiers. I'm not marching to Fury's fife." Tony yells at Steve, getting up in his face.
Banner and I were simply standing in the background, waiting for them to get to the conclusion of their argument.
"Neither am I. He's got the same blood on his hands that Loki does. But right now, we got to put that behind us and get this done. Loki needs a power source. If we can put together a list..." Steve tries to say before Stark cut him off.
"He made it personal…"
"That's not the point." Steve counters.
"That is the point. That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?" Stark replies, deep in thought.
"To tear us apart." Steve states like it's obvious.
"Yeah, divide and conquer is great but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience. " Stark says as he thiks, slowly coming to a conclusion.
"Right. I caught his act in Stuttgart?" Steve says.
"Yeah, that was just previews. This is opening night. And Loki, he's a full-tilt diva, right? He wants flowers, he wants parades. He wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered... Son of a bitch." Tony says with his eyes wide.
Suddenly a beep popped up in my HUD. Break in at Oscorp Tower.
Seriously? Now?
Pulling up footage, I feel ice flow through my veins.
Loki and his team just broke into Oscorp Tower and is heading to the roof.
"Guys, I have a location. Oscorp Tower, he just broke through the front door and killed my security." I say in panic as I try to call Harry and Greer.
"Wait… you have your security cameras connected to your suit?" Stark asks.
"Yeah." I say. "Harry. Thank God you are OK. Get the hell out of the tower. Get to the base and bring Greer."
"Alex? What's wrong? You're confusing me?"
"There is a mass murderer with powers coming up the stairs right now. Do not engage. I repeat. Don't fight him!" Suddenly the call got cut.
"Damn it!" I yell as I punch the wall, creating a dent.
"What happened?" Steve asks.
"Loki's in Oscorp and if I know my brother well enough Captain, he is just like you. He is probably fighting Loki as we speak." I say. "Get suited up, get the archer, and Banner? Prepare to get pissed. I'll distract him until you get there."
Saying this, I open the hole again and get prepared to jump.
"Wait! We need a plan of attack!" Steve tries to yell at me.
"I have a plan, Captain. Attack. And if he hurts my family? I'll try to leave something recognizable." I growl as I leap into the hole, 3000 feet above sea level. Immediately calling my glider from its perch at the top of the Helicarrier, I can only hope that Greer and Harry were OK. If they got hurt, Loki will pay in blood.
/
Hopping off my board, I see Selvig on the top of the building working on the portal generator. Loki on the other hand was standing in my living room with Harry knocked out off to the side with a gash on the side of his face and Greer in full cat form knocked out on the floor.
"Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity." Loki smirks as I walk up to him. Instead of answering, I grab him by the neck and slam his head into the marble countertop, shattering it.
"You son of a bitch." I growl as I throw him clear across the room into the opposing wall. "You hurt my family. You break into my home…"
"Hehe…" He laughs as he slowly stands up again. "You fight well for a mortal. The werecat and the child did as well. It will be a pleasure killing them in front of you."
Growling in anger, I create a magic whip and wrap it around his arm, flinging him into the counter again head first, obliterating it. Superheating my hand, I straddle his chest and put it an inch from his face. I can see the fear in his eyes, but at the same time, his blue eyes seemed to change into an emerald green color. I so wanted to burn him, I wanted to make him feel pain for daring to hurt my family.
At the same time though, he wasn't in control. Whether he would have or not normally is debatable, but in this instance he was under outside influence.
Thanos's influence.
"You are one lucky bastard." I growl as I plunge my hand into the floor next to him. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw it easily melt beneath my hand.
Slamming his head against the floor once more, I knock him out. Dropping a few drops of enhanced sedatives on his lips to be sure he would stay that way.
At that moment though, the portal opened, releasing all hell.
/
"Tony? Where the hell are you?" I ask him through the comms as I fly over the city. As soon as the portal opened, I activated my defensive platforms across the city allowing my drones to start protecting the city and try to create a barrier between the city and the portal. Unfortunately there was no possible way to create a shield, magical or technological to block the portal successfully. Hence the drones.
The Drones looked rather similar to the ones made by Whiplash in Iron Man 2, the only difference is that they are made by Oscorp and therefore have better quality systems, and they have the Avengers symbol on their shoulders. Ivan Vanko may have been a genius, but even he couldn't have made gold from the junk that was Hammer tech.
"Just picking up a new suit at the Tower. Be there soon." He replies "Where the hell did these drones come from?"
"They're mine. I figured it was only a matter of time before something like this happened, so I prepared." I reply as I leap off my glider onto the back of one of the aliens in their cruisers.
Stabbing him (Her/it?) in the back with a couple Razorbats, I steer him in the way of another, causing them to crash. Leaping off at the last second, I land on my glider again and take off.
"Seriously?" He asks as I throw several razorbats into the heads of passing aliens, causing them to veer off course and crash.
"Yep. Call me when the team gets here. Tell Banner that it's time to let loose." I say before I hang up and call Spider-Man.
"Pete." I say when he answers. "In case you didn't notice, there is an alien invasion happening, try to get as many civilians as possible out of the streets. Get them somewhere safe." I order.
"Um. Yeah. Sure. Holy crap…" he says before he hangs up.
At least he listens sometimes.
"Punisher, if you can hear this, there are aliens attacking New York. Mass murdering aliens. Blow them to hell for me would you?" I say after calling Punisher. Hopefully he could protect his side of town for a while.
So far the drones were cutting down the total aliens getting through the portal by sixty percent or so. Unfortunately that isn't going to cut it, and every few minutes one of my drones get shot down, so that makes things all the harder.
Unfortunately I couldn't shut down the portal until the avengers come in and act like a team, or this entire thing would be useless. Nothing like a battle to survive to initiate team bonding and all that.
If things go to plan, Black Widow should be the one to turn it off, but recently, things have been seriously going off kilter. It's time to change things up.
Flying low to the ground, just skimming the top of an eighteen wheeler, I leap over an alien cruiser dropping a pumpkin bomb at their feet, and land on my glider again. As I fly away, I hear it explode behind me. Hopefully the team gets here soon.
/
"What took you so long? Did you stop for drive through?" I hear Stark ask over the comms. Looking over, I can see the Quinjet get shot by an alien and get knocked out of the sky. Crash landing on a bridge, I quickly fly over to them. Throwing a razorbat at another of these damned aliens in the process.
Hopping off my glider, I see Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Banner leave the ship, Banner seeming a bit green behind the ears.
"The Portal is being generated on top of Oscorp Tower, Selvig and Loki are both there." I tell them as we form a semicircle around Banner, until he changes, he is vulnerable. "I knocked Loki out and drugged him with some high dose sedatives. He should be out for about an hour or so."
"We need to get back up there." Captain says as Stark lays out some Cruisers for us to take down. "Stark, you seeing this?"
"Seeing, still working on believing." He says. "How are we going to do this?"
"As a team." Captain America says as Thor lands next to us.
"I have unfinished business with Loki." He says.
"Get in line." Hawkeye tells him.
"Save it. Loki's going to keep this fight focused on us, and that's what we need. Without him, these things could run wild. We got Stark up top. He's going to need us to clear the streets."
"Guys, tell Banner to suit up, I'm bringing the party to you." Stark says as he flies around the corner of one of the buildings.
"I don't see how that is a party." Natasha says as her eyes widen at the size of the Behemoth flying after Stark.
Checking my drones, I can only see a few of them left. Damn it.
"Guys… My drones are toast. It's up to us to stop them now."
"Dr. Banner. Now might be a really good time for you to get angry." I hear Steve say as Banner walks in front of us.
"That's my secret Cap. I'm always Angry." And with that, we get the Incredible Hulk.
With a roar of anger, he slams his newly transformed fist into the gaping maw of the beast, nearly stopping it completely. Punching it a few more times, the behemoth flips over completely.
Just as soon as the Hulk totals that one however, I see over a dozen more flood out of the portal and smash my last drones.
Fine. They want to play, let's play.
Tapping a few buttons on my wrist, every shattered piece of the drones picked themselves up and simply hovered where they were. I designed them off of the mark 42 iron man suit that Stark can summon in pieces. These drones unfortunately can't reattach to each other, but they can act independently from each other. I had created some very baseline A.I. to control them with orders from me specifically. The A.I.'s are nowhere near Jarvis's level, but they are smart enough to take orders. In comparison it would be like comparing Einstein to a trained dog.
Their orders? Attack the Chitauri.
"Call it Captain." I say as I hop up on my glider again.
"All right, listen up. Until we can close that portal, our priority is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof. Eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash." He says as he points at the members mentioned.
"Can you give me a lift?" Hawkeye asks Stark.
"Right. Better clench up, Legolas." Stark replies.
"Thor, you got to try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You got the lightning. Light the bastards up. Osborn, You're the fastest out of all of us. Strike fast and hard where you can. " he orders. "You and me, we stay here on the ground. We keep the fighting here. And Hulk... Smash."
Fun. So do what I've been doing. I can do that.
Taking off at top speed, I immediately contact Stark.
"Iron Man, they can't bank worth a damn. Find a tight corner." Following my own, or technically Hawkeye's advice, I do just that and cause several of them to crash into a building.
"Roger that. Hey! It worked. What else you got?" Stark replied.
"The drivers seem to be attached to the cruisers. Take them out if you can and they should crash. It's what I've been doing." I say as I leap off my glider onto the side of a building, tackling the alien there. Slashing him with the claws in my suit, I leap off just in time to avoid a shot from one of his friends. Grabbing a few razorbats, I fling them and nail three of the aliens right between the eyes.
Score.
Leaping off the side of the building, I land back on my glider and let loose with the machine guns.
RATATATATA
Cutting through the rest of them, I head on to the next spot.
/
"Goblin, can I hitch a ride?" Widow asks through coms.
"Yep. Give me sec." I say as I cut through another group with several well placed sticky bombs.
Flying low, I see Captain America give her a boost with his shield before I caught her arm.
"Nice Jump." I grin. "Now where too?"
"Oscorp tower." She answers, pointing her borrowed gun at any alien coming near.
/
Landing on the roof, she is quick to start her interrogation on Selvig, this involves hitting him upside the head. I on the other hand, was checking the progress on my drones. It was kind of interesting how a random fist or head or chest plate would suddenly fly by to attack some alien cruiser or something. I made sure each piece was powered by a miniature arc reactor the size of a quarter. Put together, a single drone had enough power to fuel thecity of new York. Separated, they could power a building. Either way, they did their job. Once completely destroyed though, they have a slight self destruct sequence in them. I didn't want this tech to end up in the hands of common crooks.
Each piece had small weapons built in for personal use, guns, knives, etc. so they wouldn't just be punching the aliens.
So far a majority of the pieces were still active, with only a few pieces being destroyed, so that is good. I am about to jump into the fight again when I hear Selvig groan.
"The Sceptre…"
"Doctor?" Widow asks.
"Loki's sceptre. The energy. The Tesseract can't fight, but you can't protect against yourself." He mumbles to himself.
Leaping down to my balcony, I walk in and grab the scepter. In the corner, I see Harry groaning in pain as he slowly wakes up. Rushing over to him, I grab him by the shoulder.
"Hey. Harry. You did fine." I say as he rubs his head.
"He was fast." Harry groans. "I couldn't keep up."
"You still did well. Protect Greer for me would you? I need to help end this." At his nod, I stand up and head back to the balcony. Hopping on my glider, I head back to the roof again and see Widow comforting the Doctor.
"Guys. We can close it. We can close the portal down. Does anyone copy?" I ask as I hold the scepter to the generator.
"Do it!" I hear Rodgers say.
"No, Wait!" Stark almost yells over the coms.
"Stark, these things are still coming." Steve says.
"I got a nuke coming 's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it." Stark says.
"Tin Man, I've got several drones headed your way, let them take it." I say as I control as many pieces as I could spare to head that way.
"You do realize they are in pieces?" He replies as they fly next to him.
"Yep. Now let go." I say. As he lets go, I control the drone pieces to act as a sort of caccoon to the nuke and start flying it upwards into the portal.
Right as they cross into the portal, I lose control of the drones, but they were already in motion. Slamming the scepter into the Tesseract, I close the portal.
"YES!" I hear Stark yell in joy.
"Son of a gun." Steve sighs.
"Guys. We won." I laugh as every alien in New York simply collapsed.
"All right, yay! Hurray. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it." Stark starts babbling.
"We're not finished yet." I hear Thor say.
"And then shawarma after." Stark amends.
/
Standing in my living room, after giving Loki the antidote to the sedatives, we all stand around him and wait for him to wake up. Harry and Greer were long gone at this point, Harry having dragged her into another room.
While everyone was on their way here, I had tossed the scepter into my base through a portal. I wanted to study that thing as much as possible before I have to give it up. Who knows, it might be able to enhance my mind somehow. Unfortunately the tesseract won't be viable to study until after Thor 2 when Loki is pretending to be King. At that point, security would be shit and I could probably break in and steal it without anyone the wiser.
"Ugh…" I hear. Immediately we all get into position around the Trickster as he gets up. Hawkeye noches an arrow, Thor Lifts his hammer, Iron Man points a repulsor at him, Hulk is just growling, and Captain America and Black widow look ready to strike at a moments notice.
"Ugh…" He just groans again as he lays back down.
Looks like the Avengers are in business.
Perfect.