Bang! Bang!~
Hulk had grabbed Loki's ankle, like snatching a stuffed toy, then slammed him on the floor over and over again, as if he was taking out the trash.
The marble cracked.
By the time Hulk was done, Loki was embedded in a small crater, his limbs twitching, eyes spinning in dazed agony.
"Uugh…" He managed, barely a breath.
The battlefield below was chaos. Chitauri drop-pods fell from the sky like meteors. Screams filled the open channels. Zilant hissed lightning from the ground.
And above it all, the portal stayed open endless and hungry.
Nick Fury stood before a massive screen, annoyed as a general's voice rang through comms.
"Director Fury, if we don't act now, New York becomes ground zero. We are authorizing a nuclear solution."
Fury's eye narrowed.
"You want to nuke Manhattan?! There are millions of people down there, civilians, children!"
"Collateral damage. Necessary cost."
"No! I won't authorize mass murder to save face!"
"So I reject your stupid proposal!"
He slammed the comm shut.
"Director Fury has been relieved of duty. Nuclear strike protocol has been authorized. F-22 cleared for launch."
Hill's eyes widened.
"Sir! They're launching the jet~ now!"
Fury ran to the window as a fighter jet screamed down the runway. He grabbed a sidearm and pointed it toward the cockpit, finger tightening on the trigger.
BOOM.
Too late.
The nuclear payload and all, had already taken off, disappearing into the clouds, heading straight for downtown New York.
"Damn it!!" Hill shouted.
"Missiles are ineffective, the F-22's jamming systems are too advanced!"
Fury's fist slammed into the control console. "Get me Stark. NOW."
Midtown Manhattan
Amid the thunder and crumbling towers, Iron Man's HUD lit up with Fury's desperate face.
"Tony. We have a bogey. Nuclear. Headed straight for your coordinates. Detonation in three minutes."
There was no time for arguments.
Tony closed his eyes, exhaled. "J.A.R.V.I.S… divert all remaining power to flight. Everything we've got."
"Sir, that will leave you unable to return~"
"Just do it."
Thrusters flared blue-white.
Iron Man shot into the sky like a bullet, faster than sound, faster than light, chasing a missile that would level a city.
Iron Man caught sight of the nuclear warhead streaking through the clouds. Time was ticking.
"Almost there… Come on, Tony… grab it…"
He reached out.
CLANK!
Iron fingers locked onto the warhead. The sheer force spun him mid-air, but he twisted, redirected the thrust, and pulled the missile skyward.
"J.A.R.V.I.S. Initiate full climb. Aim for the portal."
"Trajectory locked. Estimated breach in 4… 3… 2…"
In the Sky
The Chitauri stopped mid-flight as Tony and the warhead tore through their ranks, shooting upward through the glowing maw of the portal.
Inside, he could see their world… dark, mechanical, cruel.
He released the nuclear bomb.
FLASH
The nuclear bomb detonated mid-space, behind the portal, bathing the alien fleet in an inferno of solar light and searing shockwaves.
The entire invasion force buckled, ships shattered, energy beams shorted, and creatures were radiated apart.
Even on Earth, they could see a star being born beyond the veil.
Cap watched, stunned.
"He did it…"
"But did he make it?" Natasha whispered.
A heartbeat later~
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!
Across the ruined streets of Manhattan, the enemy forces twitched and convulsed as if hit by a silent electric storm.
Whether it was the airborne leviathans or the helmeted Chitauri warriors, all collapsed in unison, lifeless, like puppets with their strings cut.
"Yes!" Hill punched the air.
Cheers erupted throughout the command center. Agents hugged, laughed, cried. Relief flooded the room like sunlight after a storm.
"We did it!"
"They're all down!"
"We're still here!"
It wasn't just a victory. It was survival against impossible odds.
Stark Tower – Rooftop
In the midst of the ruined tower, Black Widow gritted her teeth, holding Loki's scepter tight.
The Tesseract pulsed wildly within its energy cradle, spewing unstable blue currents around it like lightning in a bottle.
"No more," Natasha muttered.
She drove the scepter hard into the barrier, cutting into the pure space energy like a scalpel through silk.
The reaction was immediate. The Tesseract dimmed, its supply of cosmic power choked off.
Up above, the sky tore itself shut.
The portal shrank violently, folding in on itself, crackling and screaming until...
"SHRRRRRAK!"
With a final burst of light, it vanished, leaving behind only silence and fading trails of energy.
Suddenly~
From the now-closed sky, a red-and-gold figure tumbled out of the clouds, spiraling fast.
Iron Man.
His body plummeted, limp, unconscious. Too fast. Too far.
Thor's eyes widened.
"Stark!"
He raised Mjolnir, ready to launch, but a green blur shot ahead of him like a missile.
Hulk.
The great beast launched himself skyward, caught Tony's falling body in mid-air, then twisted mid-fall to absorb the impact, crashing into the pavement with a thunderous BOOM.
Smoke and dust erupted outward.
Moments later…
The other Avengers rushed over.
Hulk knelt, still cradling Tony like a child, and carefully peeled open the faceplate.
Tony's face was bloody, scraped, battered. The arc reactor on his chest was dark.
For a moment, no one breathed.
"..."
"Guh~" Tony gasped, eyes snapping open.
"Who kicked me in the soul...?"
The group collectively exhaled.
"You okay, boss?" said Hawkeye, cracking a relieved grin.
Tony blinked, eyes darting between all the faces leaning over him.
"Wait... wait. No one did any weird mouth-to-mouth stuff while I was out, right? I have standards."
Natasha smirked.
"Relax. You were dead for less than a minute. We had no time to argue over who'd kiss you."
"Phew," Tony sighed. "Just making sure. Wouldn't want any... uh, unlicensed CPR violations."
Cap shook his head. "The war's over, Tony."
"Not quite." Said a voice.
Hulk looked up, grinning wickedly. "Loki's still napping on my roof."
Everyone paused.
"...Right." Cap muttered.
"Let's wrap this up."
A Ruined Avenue Nearby
Soren stood calmly in front of the towering alien beast known as Zilant, whose obsidian-black scales shimmered with crackling energy. Despite the carnage around them, Zilant looked unscathed—still crackling with vitality, still hungry for more.
But the thrill of battle was over.
"That's enough showing off," Soren said flatly, pulling a small data prism from his sleeve. "I've already collected more than enough Chitauri DNA and beast cores."
Zilant lowered its massive head, rumbling softly, almost like a purr.
Soren rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, I know you had fun. But you howl any louder and you'll wake the Atlantic."
Zilant let out a soft, almost playful snort—then with a flash of white-blue light, vanished into a streak of thunder, racing toward the sea near Manhattan where it had made its lair.
"Show-off." Soren muttered, pocketing the prism. "At least he didn't try to keep a war whale as a pet again…"
With a final glance toward the Avengers in the distance, already dragging Loki into cuffs Soren turned away.
"You handle your cleanup, Earth's Mightiest. I've got samples to catalog."
And with that, he vanished into a portal of swirling starlight, returning to his hidden medical hall, silent and unseen.
The Avengers stood on a bloodied street, battered but unbroken.
The Chitauri were gone.
The sky was whole.
And Earth... had lived to fight another day.
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
Fellow Phantoms and aspiring Phantoms to be, if you seek to access advanced parts of this story procced to my shadowy realm of p@treon.
PhantomDream