TGS - #120.1

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Manhattan, New York

–Steve Rogers–

Sometimes, he hated being this weak, being unable to help anyone, not the innocent people, not Tony, and certainly not Jack. What would he do? He asked himself as he looked at the giant hole in the. Manhattan was all but deserted at this point, with people going so far as to get out of the State because of the giant dark cloud that had begun covering Manhattan's skyline a few minutes back. 

The cloud had stopped advancing, as did the jagged cracks in the sky but…then what? The cloud displayed some abnormal symptoms according to Jarvis. It advanced a bit before rolling back and then did the same thing over and over again. 

Tony….Tony was injured, severely, with just a backhand from that thing. It was only a miracle that Wanda Maximoff, the person who had damaged the team the most ever since it was formed, came just in time and held back that tentacle monster so that Jack could enter that cloud of Dark Energy and save Manhattan.

They could do nothing but watch as Wanda Maximoff used her powers for good, banishing several more people from the surroundings, vaporising rubble with a wave of her hand and even creating shields when some stray energy shots were fired from her fight with that tentacle monster.

God, he hated being this weak. He couldn't even lift Tony out of the rubble, that was all Wanda. Jarvis had airlifted Tony, and last he heard, all the doctors in the state, even the ones that were fleeing, to help get Tony better.

He closed his eyes as the image of a pale Tony with his legs gone entered his mind. He flinched as he heard yet another roar from the tentacle monster. He was in a spare suit that Jarvis gave him. It didn't fit in many places but a little itch and a few blisters were little price to pay in case he could help end this nightmare. A nightmare that had begun so suddenly that no one in the world could have prepared for it.

For now, the world was watching, with bated breaths as Wanda Maximoff who, until recently, was one of the top enemies of the Avengers, battled with a tall man with an Octopus for a head. It was all too much for the people of the world, all the land around them was being reorganised at such a pace that he had to rely on Jarvis to move the suit from place to place in case he got caught up in one such attack.

Even the stray bolts of energy were enough to just erase multiple buildings, roads, and even gouge craters into the ground with contemptuous ease. 

The radio crackled to life in the suit, "....I can't believe this is the same woman we all wanted to fight and imprison. What were we even thinking?" The hysteria in Clint's voice was unmistakable as the members of Avengers were spread around the city, helping rescue anyone trapped and making sure that the perimeter around the Dark Cloud increased with every passing moment. 

Jarvis' bots were doing most of the heavy lifting and he was not really needed there, all of his focus was on the fight in front of him. 

The Hulk was not of any use and Thor was off-world. The woman in the red had left such a shadow on Hulk's psyche that he refused to come out and when he did, he refused to even look at the red that had gathered above the city, the amount steadily outpacing the Dark Cloud itself.

Jarvis could also spot the differences as Wanda could make effective use of that cloud of red energy to better battle the man who was now bathed in Dark Energy. Threads, ropes, and skewers, of all kinds emerged from the red clouds at any time and impaled the man, only for the red energy to fizzle out soon after, revealing holes that would get patched up in no time. Honestly, it felt like both the combatants were not fighting to win but only to keep each other busy because while Wanda had some wounds, all of them were superficial, and the monster had no wounds since they were healed as soon as the red energy in them was used up.

He sighed as he had to move his position, yet another energy shot hitting his previous position, vaporising the building he was standing on.

"Cap! Be careful!" The warning came in choruses as the current state of his suit was no doubt transmitted to everyone. IT was battered yes but not beyond its ability to function safely, otherwise, Jarvis would have just pulled him aside, no matter his objections.

"Jarvis, how is Tony?" 

"...Sir is…out of danger." And wasn't that a horrible situation when the only thing Jarvis could report on was the fact that Tony's life was not in danger? He held no delusions about the fact that Tony would no longer be able to walk on his own two legs for quite some time now.

"Steve Rogers, I need your help." He jolted in the suit as he heard a voice speak directly into his head. He was quite familiar with the process, after all, it had already happened once, and honestly, he was glad that he was at least contacted. This way, he could at least help in some way.

"Yes, what Can I do?"

"Let go of your shield."

Though confused, he complied, only holding onto the shield as it rested on the flat of the palm of the suit. He was about to voice out his confusion when he saw it.

The shield was snatched out of the suit's hands but he didn't even notice as he saw what was happening. A manifestation of some sort, a being whose appearance he couldn't even describe, something that made his head hurt and his eyes bleed.

He began taking injuries on his person simply by laying eyes on the being. 

Jarvis, as usual, worked in the background, watching the footage and warning everyone who would listen, "RETREAT! I repeat, RETREAT! Cutting off all broadcasts. I advise everyone to look away from the epicentre. Exotic phenomena detected, indiscriminate injuries were inflicted simply by looking at it. I repeat, RETREAT! Exotic phenomenon detected! Retreat" 

All of that rang hollow in his ears as he felt his mind shut down, from the pain of looking at something that no human should have to ever look at. The last thing he saw before the suit's HUD switched to black was his shield, blue and white, on its course to Wanda.

He smiled weakly at that. 'At Least I was helpful in some way' Then darkness claimed his vision.

___xx____

–Jarvis Stark(Son)--

If he had a physical body, he would be seething in fury, not just because of the irreparable damage done to Mr.Stark but also because of the overall situation. He felt useless. FUCKING USELESS!

While one of his logical centres underwent an emotional meltdown, something of an oddity in his processing centres, another one was hard at work at shutting down anything and everything that could record or even transmit whatever was happening in that cloud.

Even he was not spared from the attack as one of his logical centres simply went offline and began behaving oddly, as if trying to attack everything in sight when it focused on that image for too long, forcing him to delete that logical centre and when that didn't work, destroying the very server where the logical centre resided.

It was a feature that had been installed on the insistence of Mr.Sullivan who probably had an idea that something like this would happen, urging Mr.Stark to give Jarvis the ability to simply physically cut off uncooperative parts of himself.

Another one of his logical centres worked on ascertaining the chances of Mr.Sullivan being a clairvoyant because he simply knew far too much. 

99..82% devices took over and purged of any image, recording, or snapshot of the avatar. Another logic centre forcibly purged due to the damage. 

Optimal operating capacity - not compromised

Disposable logical centres - 23

Chances of purging ALL data - 21%

Recalculating…..

Chances of purging 99.99% data - 97%

Parameters acceptable - Allocating Logical centres.

As all his logical centres worked on it, the main partition of himself, the one most advanced in social cues and emotions, worked on making sure that Mr.Stark's sacrifice was not in vain. From the data recovered from the suits as well as from the ensuing fights, Jarvis knew that any of the energy attacks from any Arc Reactor would not be working. The enemy didn't even register the impacts, with Mr.Starks experimental UniBeams being the only thing that seemed to get the enemy's attention and even then, the damage was non-existent.

His logical centres catalogued the dialogue between Captain Rogers and Wanda Maximoff that resulted in the latter requisitioning the Vibranium shield, which was now on its way to Ms.Maximoff.

His processors worked overtime as he coordinated everything and deeming it viable, pulled all the drones from across the city, along with all the batches in Stark Tower, unfinished or otherwise, prioritising the ones with flight and repulsor ready capabilities.

Hundreds of drones and unfinished weapons platforms littered the sky as they broke all safety protocols, prioritising only one thing, reaching the impact site.

He didn't know if Ms.Maximoff could do something about the congregation of unmeasurable energy behind the enemy but she was the only one who was capable of holding back the monstrosity so he had no choice but to put all his strength behind her.

The only problem was that the suit he sent to shield Ms.Maximoff dissolved into red strands, its data stream being disrupted. Switching tactics, the drones all floated behind Ms.Maximoff, with all of their repulsors charged beyond their capabilities, some of them sending out warning signals immediately.

He watched, in slow motion, as Ms.Maximoff had a ball of glowing red in her hands that similarly hurt to look though not at the level of the monstrosity in front of her. He still had his drones turn their cameras away, relying on close range Infrared data, though even that was becoming increasingly viable.

Through them, he saw Captain's shield floating in front of Ms.Maximoff. For some reason, he felt the energy being used, the energy aimed at the city, and knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the energy would sink part of the East Coast. And yet, he couldn't do anything but watch as Ms.Maximoff slammed her hands into the back of the shield, creating a noise that even he heard, aside from all the data pulled from various sensors, it was as if the noise penetrated straight to his mind.

Then, he went blind, or more accurately, every single sensor in the vicinity was destroyed, including his connection to everything in Manhattan. Using the Quantum entanglement network, the main partition left Stark Tower and arrived at the LA base, instantly reestablishing connectivity to everything.

Finding everything in New York offline, Jarvis turned to the satellites as well as the drones on their way to New York. There was a large red sphere of energy that expanded before it contracted. The satellite view showed the Dark congregation going forward, almost swallowing the red energy except for a small dot that held firm in the centre. 

That was probably Ms.Maximoff with Captain's shield.

Then, the red exploded into action, swallowing all of the Dark energy and then streaking into the Dark Cloud as well, leaving behind no trace of anything.

The fastest drones reached the site not even a minute later, with the vision being restored, giving him sight of the part of New York City that was just a large crater now, being filled with water from the surrounding water bodies.

The monstrous image was gone with the Dark Cloud now hosting four different colours. Purple with Green, Red, and Black. Before could do anything, he saw the red flare, before the Purple and Green colours started enlarging.

There was a massive blast of red before the Dark was swallowed by it, forcing him to focus on the Red/Purple that was now apparently heading their way if the drone's vision was to be believed. Connectivity was restored, no radio disruptions existed right now but there existed no equipment in all of New York that worked at the moment so the drones were his only source of information at the moment.

All drone production facilities were charged all the way to the maximum because Jarvis foresaw an extreme increase in rescue and redevelopment work.

The fastest drone, which was the rescue model, reached just in time to see a Purple and Green star strike through the sky, right in the impact trajectory with the drone. The drone's lenses barely saw the human like being in the Purple fire before it was disintegrated.

The drone behind it saw the drone cease to exist before the being who was hopefully Mr.Sullivan streaked through the sky and crashed into the crater that was now partially filled with water.

The drones were all redirected to that area as the satellite view showed the Dark Clouds receding before reports of multiple high velocity objects bearing the same energy signature emerged from all parts of the world. He counted 1107 projectiles as they were all absorbed by the Dark Cloud before the Dark Cloud ceased to be, pulling in by itself before all that was left was blue sky.

He sent in all the reports gathered, including Ms.Maximoff's involvement to all the world's governments before he focused on the drones attempting to extract Mr.Sullivan from the hole that was soon going to be filled with water.

Only anything that came into contact with the Purple Fire, which held a core of green around Mr.Sullivan's neck disintegrated anything that came close to it. Even water was being disintegrated just like three of his drones.

Switching tracks, Jarvis contacted Ms.Potts, some of the more Avengers friendly people in the administration as well as the rest of the Avengers, informing them about the incident before Jarvis set about creating a robust perimeter around the downed and unconscious form of Mr.Sullivan.

If his sensors were correct, Mr.Sullivan, whose face was now visible, was slightly twitching inside the fire, resulting in flares that just dug an even deeper crater.

Word Count - 2464

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