Thanos handed the Chitauri the golden spear, which was passed to Loki. Embedded in the spear was the Mind Stone—one of the six Infinity Stones—with the power to disturb the mind.
The superheroes standing near the spear were unknowingly affected. Tension rose and arguments broke out. Too bad Ada Wong wasn't there, or it would've turned into another great show. She was busy excavating what was left of the NASA division destroyed by the Tesseract's energy. The explosion had turned the whole site into a massive crater. After several days of digging, they finally began recovering undamaged computers and documents. These were top secret and couldn't afford to be leaked.
The energy from the Tesseract was no joke. Just a tiny bit of it blew open a pit the size of a stadium. The site was a complete mess. While recovering the data, Ada came across a lot of NASA's confidential files. That's how she learned the U.S. had a space orbit project, planning to build a training platform in orbit to train cosmic fighter pilots. Clearly, the U.S. already knew the future belonged to outer space and had started preparing people to adapt.
They were ahead of every other country. No one else knew that one day the U.S. would have its own orbital fortress. Ada quietly made copies of all those files.
By noon, an agent suddenly reported, "Ma'am, we've lost contact with the Helicarrier."
"Hmm?" That was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s forward command center. Ada suddenly had a bad feeling. She looked up. It was a clear June day, not a cloud in sight. But something felt off, like something invisible was lingering in the air.
Normally, the Helicarrier hovered at ten thousand meters, completely hidden from view. But Ada's instincts told her there was a battle going on in the sky. "Keep trying to contact them. Stay alert."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Hawkeye had launched an attack on the Helicarrier, sabotaging one of its engines. It was now falling fast. A sudden explosion triggered Banner's transformation into the Hulk. He and Thor started fighting on the flight deck.
Thor's hammer couldn't break the Hulk's bones or tear through his muscles.
But the Hulk landed a punch that made Thor wince. Thor just couldn't match the Hulk's raw rage. Their chaotic battle tore through multi-million-dollar fighter jets on the deck like they were made of paper.
"Roar!" The Hulk threw another punch that sent Thor flying. A gaping hole opened in the wall.
It hurt. This was Thor's first time fighting something so tough. Even monsters from the Nine Realms usually only took two or three hammer strikes. But the Hulk had taken more than ten and was still full of energy. That kind of defense impressed Thor. He just lay there among the debris, too tired to move.
Luckily, an F-35 hovering outside caught the Hulk's attention. With a standing long jump, the Hulk leapt onto the jet. In a few blows, he wrecked the aircraft. The plane spun out of control and fell, carrying the Hulk away from the Helicarrier.
The pilot ejected but the Hulk grabbed the seat and tossed him around a few times before letting go. The dizzy pilot finally managed to open his parachute and breathed a sigh of relief. That was way too close.
With the Hulk gone, Thor gritted his teeth and got up. He rushed straight to where Loki was being held.
"Loki!" Thor burst into the cell and grabbed him. "What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything. You can't blame everything on me," Loki said innocently—then his body started to blur.
Uh-oh. It was one of Loki's illusion spells. He was well-versed in dark magic, and illusions were second nature to him. It was nearly impossible to tell the real from the fake.
The Loki in front of Thor was just a projection. Thor turned—and sure enough, the real Loki was already outside the cell. "Loki!" Thor watched helplessly as Loki shut the cell door. Now their positions had swapped.
'My dear brother really is missing a few brain cells,' Loki thought as he smirked. He then opened the hatch beneath the prison chamber, getting ready to drop the entire cell from the ship.
"Loki, don't!" Thor didn't want Loki to keep making the same mistakes.
Loki hesitated for a moment, then gave Thor a smile and quickly slammed the button. The prison chamber holding Thor dropped straight down from ten thousand meters in the air.
"Ahhh!" Loki's cold ruthlessness hit Thor hard. The prison pod bounced violently like a giant clear canister. He could barely move inside. But as long as he had his hammer, Thor wasn't afraid. He swung Mjolnir. Right before hitting the ground, he hurled it through the wall. The hammer dragged him out of the reinforced cell just in time.
But he was already too close to the ground. He crashed straight into the earth, plowing a deep groove into the dirt. The impact wasn't light. Even the God of Thunder needed a few minutes to catch his breath.
While Thor was knocked to the ground, Iron Man was still in the air working desperately to fix the engine. Captain America was helping out—fighting off enemy agents while waiting for Tony's cue to reduce the engine power and give him enough time to escape.
The agents Hawkeye brought were S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives under Loki's mind control. One by one, they were being taken down by their own comrades. No one really cared about these nameless goons. Just look at Hawkeye—also mind-controlled and fighting viciously—but Director Fury and the others still avoided lethal blows. Black Widow, in particular, wasn't trying to kill him—she wanted to snap him out of it.
Inside a narrow corridor, Black Widow fought Hawkeye hand-to-hand. Honestly, his archery was godlike, but up close, he had no edge. Black Widow, enhanced by drugs and tough as nails, was just as strong as he was. Her body moved like a sleek panther around him, never giving him a chance to draw his bow. She struck hard at every weak point.
The blows started cracking through the mental hold. Hawkeye began to resist the mind control—but he wasn't free yet.
Black Widow could tell beating him was helping. So she went all in. She slipped behind him, planted her feet, cradled the back of his head, and smashed it straight into the wall.
His forehead met cold metal with a loud clang. The sound echoed through the hallway.
No wonder she was called Black Widow—she just used his skull like a hammer. Hawkeye blacked out.
Outside, Iron Man finally got the engine spinning again. "Steve! Now! Slow it down for me!"
But Captain America was still fighting off enemies and couldn't hit the switch. "Hold on!"
The engine started spinning faster than Iron Man could keep up with. "Uh-oh!" Tony shouted as he got sucked into the turbines. The metal shell of his suit scraped violently against the rotors, sending sparks flying everywhere.
It felt like he was stuck inside a blender. He couldn't do anything but shout, "Help! Somebody help!" Who would've thought even Iron Man would be yelling for help one day?
Damage alarms were blaring all over the suit. He was being pounded nonstop with no way to fight back. Absolutely miserable. Thankfully, Captain America finally slowed the engine down, giving him a chance to break free.
Iron Man's suit came out looking like a burnt tin can—blackened, dented all over, sparks shooting from the joints. Battered and glitching, he barely made it back onto the Helicarrier, trailing sparks the whole way. His control system gave out and the suit shut down entirely.
The Avengers had taken a brutal beating. Everyone was hurt, both physically and mentally. These top-tier heroes hadn't even started working together, and already they were a mess. Looking at them now, it was hard to believe this team had any future at all.