A fight was breaking out on the pier at that very moment.
"Come on, Wally," Tony taunted from the air, "You know how this ends: surrender and save us the trouble."
"My name is not Wally, I am The Man in the Wall," replied a man nearly two meters tall, turned to stone, as he dodged the missiles Iron Man fired at him.
"Really? That sounds like a poem, not a name. Think of something shorter, Wally," Tony mocked.
Before the stone man could answer, Pietro burst in from the rear at lightning speed and landed a powerful blow. The opponent was flung against some nearby containers; his stony skin cushioned the impact and the damage was minimal.
Pietro advanced and unloaded a series of blows, but strangely none of them affected him. The villain laughed.
"Don't you know? A wall feels no pain. You can't hurt me."
"Please" Pietro muttered through his teeth, incredulous.
From above came Tony's mechanical voice, "Are you still obeying the physics of a rock?"
Then, a coordinated rain of missiles struck and caused the stone guy, instead of being sent flying sideways, to make an enormous vertical leap. "Into the water," Tony shouted, and Pietro understood at once.
Even moving at Pietro's usual speed, the villain traveled relatively slowly by comparison: with two small calculated hops at precise points, Pietro intercepted his trajectory in midair and redirected his fall toward the pier.
When time normalized, the stone man was barely recovering from the missile impacts when, for a reason he could not foresee, he felt another hit that sent him straight into the water. He opened his eyes in panic.
"Wait, I can't..." he could not finish the sentence; he sank.
"Is he okay?" Tony asked.
"Yes, JARVIS," Tony replied, calling to his virtual assistant.
'The subject is stable' JARVIS answered, exactly two minutes and forty-nine seconds later he spoke again, 'Movements decreased sharply, the energy is dropping. He is unconscious.'
"Your turn, kid," Tony said to Pietro, who had already disappeared and reappeared with the stone man.
"Ugh, what a pain," Pietro complained, dropping him onto the pier.
"JARVIS."
'The subject only fainted from lack of air. He is stable.'
"Good." Tony made a decision, "Take him to the Negative Zone."
Pietro vanished again, heading north, and Tony, with nothing more to do there, returned home.
A while passed. Wanda had already finished her tasks; Pietro was the last to come back.
"I'm back," he appeared in a gust of wind and let himself fall onto the couch.
"One down," Pietro said, "Only dozens left."
"They're not that many," Tony corrected, "Only about five important ones remain; the rest are minnows. Although I hate the Skrulls, at least, while they're posing as heroes, they're helping us catch them."
"Solving the problem they themselves created is not worthy of praise," Wanda mocked.
"Have you discovered anything?" Pietro asked.
"Nothing," Tony answered, "Absolutely nothing. But we don't need evidence to know who's behind it."
"Isn't it counterproductive to free villains and then capture them?" Pietro asked.
"On the contrary," Tony explained, "Not only them, but us too. Every capture we make, every rescue, raises the image of superhero power to an incredible peak."
"And then?" Pietro asked, confused.
"Think about it: the higher the pedestal, the harder the fall will be. When everyone blindly trusts heroes, what happens if an enemy emerges that not even we can defeat?"
Before Pietro could respond, Wanda intervened, "Desperation. Total desperation. What if, in that moment of panic, they use a technical means to win?"
"A special means?" Pietro asked.
"Did you forget?" Tony said, "The antenna not only nullifies the heroes' powers, it also nullifies the villains'. If people come to believe that the Skrulls and their technology are the solution, they will have enough support to deploy those antennas worldwide."
Pietro assimilated the idea, surprised, "How do we stop that?"
"Beat them from the start," Tony declared.
"Sounds easier said than done," Wanda said, resigned, "This is the final phase of their plan: an element that will drastically increase the efficiency of their objectives. It's probably well thought out. We, on the other hand, can only wait for a mistake to happen... and then try to fix it."
A man with a disproportionate head in an unknown place, his skull partially replaced by a red metal plate, watched an object in his hands with ecstasy, at first glance it looked like a futuristic staff, but it was much more than that.
"Fascinating," he murmured, "Skrull technology is impressive. To think something like this can nullify any kind of power... SHIELD was foolish to let me get close."
Beside him, Adrian Toomes, wearing a suit that recalled the silhouette of a vulture, frowned, "You shouldn't get too confident, Sterns. It still seems suspicious to me that they let us touch it. I suspect a trap."
"Don't worry, Vulture," the leader replied arrogantly, "The powerful usually sin in the same way: pride. Their confidence gave them the courage to hand this to me; they thought I would not use it against them."
"Enough talk," another interrupted, "When do we start with the plan?" It was the Abomination, accompanied by another gray colossus with a horn on his forehead, "I already want to smash those annoying Avengers."
"Soon," the leader smiled, "A few more adjustments to the machine and we'll lure them all. We will make them pay for what they did."
Toomes replied, "I still think luring them is a bad idea. We should finish them off separately."
"That's not fun," said a thin man from the shadows with a cold smile and a mark on his forehead, "If we want to prove we're the best we must challenge them and beat them head-on."
"That's stupid," Toomes answered.
"Don't worry," Bullseye smiled, "I never lost a challenge."
______________________________________
Hey, this is the 100th chapter of this fic.
For those who weren't here about two months ago and don't know, the original plan was for this series to only have around 60–70 chapters. In fact, I had the ending planned from the very beginning, since unlike many Marvel stories, this one had a clear goal from the start. So surpassing 70 chapters surprised me, and reaching 100 even more.
I'd like to thank everyone who's been following me all this time, and the next 3 chapters(separated) will be a sort of special as a thank-you
+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)