Battery Park, Manhattan, 17:30. This is one of the busiest spots in Manhattan, especially at this hour.
The reason was right in front of them. A few hundred meters away, in the middle of New York Harbor, stood Liberty Island, home to one of the world's most recognizable monuments: the Statue of Liberty.
Although the island closes at night, sunset is one of the busiest times for tourists, since the contrast between the monument and the sun's light is ideal for photographs. Those who couldn't go to the island because of limited spots could only watch the monument from here.
At that moment, a ferry carrying new tourists crossed the bay toward the island. At first glance, the ferry seemed to have little security, especially compared with the island. However, what many did not know was that the ferry's security was actually much greater. That was because anyone planning to do something on the island had to use the ferry to get there. In addition, most people who try to attack a monument like this tend to be extremists, people who, once they arrive, start causing disturbances without realizing that the security captain has been among them since the beginning of the trip and can stop them easily.
Perhaps in real life the difference would not be that great, but in the Marvel universe the gap between a security captain and an ordinary guard is significant.
The head of security in charge that day, and for the last fifteen years, was a middle-aged man named Ethan Carter.
At that moment, Ethan received a signal on his radio. Making sure no tourist could see him, he answered.
"Pa, is something up?" a voice on the other end asked.
"I told you to call me Captain at work, Michael. There's nobody suspicious," Ethan replied.
"Nothing strange, huh? Same as the last three years," Michael said, ignoring the comment.
"Don't let your guard down just because everything seems fine, Michael."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Don't relax on the job, I know. Ah, they're calling me, see you later, Pa."
Ethan didn't manage to answer; the call cut off.
"Ah… that kid," he murmured before returning to his post.
Ten minutes later, the ferry arrived at Liberty Island. Almost six hundred people disembarked excitedly, cameras or cell phones in hand. In a few seconds the ferry was empty and began its return trip.
Ethan was about to board again when he noticed something wrong. Without hesitation, he shouted, "Get down!"
He threw himself to the floor, pushing those nearby. No one had time to react when the ferry exploded in a great wave of fire. The blast threw them to the ground and the heat badly burned those closest.
Luckily, the bomb had been aimed to sink the ferry and not to kill people. Had it been of another kind, the damage would have been much worse.
Ethan got up immediately. "Tom! Tom, are you okay?" he shouted. Receiving no answer, he prepared to jump into the water, but a voice stopped him.
"Stop, Captain Ethan Carter. The ferry operator is already dead. If you move, you will meet the same fate."
Ethan turned toward the voice. In front of everyone, on a platform, a man with an elongated, metal-covered skull watched them from above. Ethan recognized him instantly.
"I don't take orders from supervillains," he said.
"Of course you don't," the leader replied. "But would you risk all these people just to save one? I think the answer is obvious."
Ethan understood the threat. He clenched his fists tightly. He had known Tom for years; learning he was dead affected him, but it affected him even more to think that maybe he had had a chance to save him.
The leader looked at him with a satisfied smile. "As you can see, I already used one bomb. That will probably make you think there could be more," he said. "And you are right: there are explosives placed all over the island, enough to kill everyone if they detonate."
Chaos broke out. Some screamed, others cried or embraced their loved ones. Ethan, silently, analyzed possible locations for the bombs and looked for opportunities.
"Don't worry," the leader continued. "We will not kill anyone… at least while you cooperate. You are only bait to lure a bigger fish."
He did not explain further, but everyone understood whom he referred to. Then the leader ordered the hostages gathered. Thousands of people were grouped together, surrounded by the security guards.
It did not take long before a ship landed on the island and the Avengers disembarked from it. The tourists reacted with relief.
"They're the Avengers!" someone shouted.
"They came to save us!"
Steve stepped to the front of the group, holding his shield. "Gentlemen, I'm going to ask you to surrender," he said firmly.
Before he could take another step, a projectile flew toward him. Steve raised his shield and blocked it with ease. Looking at the object lodged in it, he was surprised to see it was a playing card.
The ground shook. Two enormous figures emerged behind the leader, coming out of the shadows. "Finally showed up, I can't wait to tear them apart," Rhino growled. "My muscles were getting sore from waiting," Abomination added, cracking his neck.
From the sky the Vulture descended in his metallic suit. Seeing the Avengers together, he frowned. Finally, Bullseye appeared; he said nothing and began firing directly at the Captain. Steve, with his enhanced reflexes, blocked each bullet with his shield without difficulty.
The rest of the team also charged forward, with Abomination and Rhino leading the assault like freight trucks ready to crush anything in their path.
The force of their impact forced the group to scatter.
Sam took to the skies to provide cover, but Vulture intercepted him. The two clashed head-on, leaving Sam no chance to assist his teammates.
Abomination swung wildly at Vision, but the android's intangibility made every strike futile.
Vision dodged with surgical precision, firing concentrated energy blasts at his joints. Each hit made the beast stagger.
Rhino, meanwhile, was locked in close combat against Steve and Bucky. His bio-armor, incredibly durable, amplified his brute strength but drastically limited his speed.
Alexei, his real name, had been turned into that creature when he was still a teenager.
That was why his simple tactics, charge and strike, made him seem like a child facing two masters of combat.
Even so, Steve and Bucky couldn't harm him either, his armor was too thick.
Meanwhile, the support fighters battled from a distance.
Every time Bullseye tried to aid his team, one of Clint's arrows intercepted his projectiles.
And whenever Clint attempted the same, Bullseye answered with equal precision.
Their duel became an indirect exchange, both pretending to assist their allies while secretly trying to outmatch one another.
From an outside perspective, it looked as if the Avengers were gaining ground. The hostages, watching from afar, felt hope rising within them.
"Yes, the Avengers are going to win!"
"Mommy, are the Avengers going to save us?"
"Of course, Zoe. How could those villains ever beat our heroes?"
Ethan, however, kept his brow furrowed.
Beside him, Michael noticed his expression and whispered,
"What's wrong? Aren't they winning?"
"That's exactly what worries me" Ethan replied.
"What do you mean?"
"If they were losing, they'd use their best weapon."
"Their best weapon?"
"Us. All they'd have to do is point a gun at us and the Avengers would surrender, or at least be distracted. It makes no sense that they haven't done it."
Michael almost said maybe they hadn't thought of it, but then he remembered who led the group of villains. He dismissed the idea immediately.
Ethan continued
"If they're not using us, then there's only one explanation, they have something better."
While they whispered, the battle raged on. The Avengers had broken through the line and taken the upper hand.
Abomination, despite his power, lacked endurance. His body began to give out, as did Rhino's.
Sam's suit, upgraded by Stark, far outclassed Toomes'. Though both were flight systems, their functions had evolved over time.
Vulture relied on his mechanical talons for close combat, while Falcon's gear included weaponry and reinforcements made precisely for that kind of fight.
When Sam realized this, he didn't hesitate, he went in close and swiftly defeated Vulture.
Freed, he fired a burst of feather-shaped projectiles at Bullseye, who, focused on Clint, barely managed to dodge.
Clint took advantage of the distraction and unleashed a rapid sequence of arrows, some toward Bullseye's current spot, others aimed at his escape route. The result was immediate.
From that moment on, the battle turned decisively.
One by one, the Avengers overcame their opponents and aided the rest, until finally the entire enemy group fell.
Victory was theirs.
The hostages cheered when they saw the Avengers victorious.
The five regrouped, watching the Leader, who stood motionless before them.
"We've got you, surrender," said Steve.
"Yes, you defeated them all. With your strength and strategy, you triumphed once again. Incredible abilities, technology, mutations... or even the fusion of both. None of it was enough against the Avengers," the Leader replied.
His tone didn't sound like surrender. Every calm word he spoke filled the air with uneasy silence. Everyone understood there was something else behind his speech.
"So... even though none of that could defeat you, the Avengers will fall by my hand. I will prove that the mind surpasses any other kind of power."
Before anyone could react, he activated a device in his hand. In an instant, all the heroes froze where they stood, completely motionless.
No matter how much they tried, none of them could move.
At first, the spectators didn't understand what was happening, but soon they discovered they couldn't move either. The joy that had once filled their faces turned into fear.
The Leader laughed.
"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha... How about that, huh? At first, I thought about simply nullifying your powers, but what would that prove? How could the most intelligent being in the universe depend on the technology of others? Instead, I made this," he said proudly, showing his creation.
"But villains die for talking too much, so let's get straight to the point... any last words?... not that you could talk anyway," he said while drawing a weapon and aiming it at Steve's head. The Captain could only move his eyes.
At another time, the Leader might have taken them as trophies, lab rats, or symbols to instill fear in the people. But not this time. This time he wanted to end them once and for all.
However, before he could pull the trigger, a laser beam fell from the sky. Sterns barely managed to dodge it.
From above, out of the machine's range, Tony's voice echoed through the communicator.
"I can't let you do that, big brain. A public execution of the Avengers would only help the Skrulls," he said firmly. He knew the Skrulls' plan was to show they could handle what even the Avengers couldn't. Allowing them to kill these false heroes would only strengthen their narrative.
From the air, Tony kept firing at Sterns, who narrowly dodged every blast.
Meanwhile, the Leader noticed a red energy starting to envelop the hostages.
"Stop," he said, raising a detonator. "If you try anything, they all die."
Tony immediately ceased fire, and Wanda halted her protective spell. She had been trying to cover the hostages with her chaos magic to get them out, but now she couldn't risk it.
She had no idea where the bombs were: one could be under their feet, among them, disguised as part of the environment, or even attached to one of the hostages.
If she acted carelessly, the consequences would be catastrophic.
She could try protecting them individually with her magic, but that would take time, time the Leader clearly wasn't willing to give.
"How about you come down?" said the Leader with a smile.
Tony and Wanda descended until they stood in front of him.
Curiously, they could still move within the same range as the others who were frozen, but as soon as they got close enough, their bodies locked in place.
The machine didn't function as a simple static field; it seemed to control the exact moment it trapped each target.
Unlike the others, when Wanda approached, the Leader injected her with something using a syringe. Her eyes turned white, and she lost consciousness instantly, though her body remained suspended in midair, unmoving.
"Where's the other one?" asked Sterns.
Then he heard a sound. He turned to the side and saw the water rippling, someone moving at high speed, heading away from the area.
Though it seemed like a retreat, Sterns didn't lower his guard. He adjusted his machine's settings, ensuring that anyone entering its range would be completely immobilized.
After confirming it, he turned his attention back to Steve. The interruption from Tony and Wanda hadn't bothered him. For some reason, he wanted to kill the Captain first.
No one expected Pietro to approach at full speed in a straight line, aiming directly at the machine as if it were his finish line.
When he saw him, the Leader smiled coldly. He trusted his invention completely: as soon as Pietro entered the radius, his body would freeze.
But the so-called supreme intellect had overlooked something basic about movement.
The machine could stop his muscles and prevent him from generating new force, but it couldn't cancel the inertia that already existed.
The moment his running impulse was halted, his body kept moving, obeying the laws of physics. Pietro became a living projectile, flying straight toward the console and Sterns, who stood right in front of it.
Thanks to his understanding of motion and force, Pietro instantly realized what the machine had done. He knew the impact would destroy him, but he chose to continue anyway.
Even if the crash destroyed his body, it would also destroy the device and save everyone.
The Leader stood in front of him. Pietro didn't stop. He believed Sterns, beyond his intellect, was still a normal human.
Or was he?
At the moment of impact, Pietro felt abnormal resistance, something no human body should have. The Leader even managed to deflect him with brutal strength, sending him flying in another direction.
Pietro crashed into a nearby wall, smashing through it completely. He fell unconscious, badly wounded from the impact.
Sterns barely stumbled back a few steps. Tony looked at him in disbelief, at first not understanding how he had survived, but soon realized the truth.
Despite enduring the hit, Sterns coughed up blood... green blood.
Tony understood everything in an instant.
The Leader was a Skrull. The entire thing had been theater.
Rage consumed him.
As a genius, he fully grasped what Pietro had tried to do. If he hadn't hit the Leader first, he would have crashed into the machine, destroying it, even at the cost of his own life.
Since the Skrulls began their invasion, the former heroes had lived in hiding, limited, stripped of freedom.
And now, before Tony's eyes, even the freedom to die fighting had been taken from them.
Tony communicated with JARVIS. He could not speak because of the situation, but when it came to his suits he always had plans from A to Z, so he relied on a voice-free communication system.
"JARVIS, route the energy to the foot thrusters," Tony ordered.
"Sir, you are on solid ground. That would cause an explosion, damage the suit, and probably your lower limbs," JARVIS replied.
"I know. Do it."
Obediently, JARVIS ignited the thrusters.
The sound drew the Leader's attention, he was still recovering from what had happened before. He felt a déjà vu when the suit's foot nozzles detonated and shot Tony into the air; another blast swung his leg, which connected with the Leader's face like a kick.
The sequence repeated: controlled explosions pushed Tony toward the enemy while he struck. Seeing that his legs were not enough, he began using his arms. His body moved like a rag doll, the limbs propelled by detonations that shook the rest of the suit.
Although the sight was ridiculous, no one laughed. Everyone watched as the armor disintegrated: Tony's limbs were exposed, scorched and torn. When the remaining armor was no longer enough, Tony activated a portable repulsor he always carried in his hand for emergencies and used it to deliver a final blow that knocked the Fake Leader down; the explosion tore off several of Tony's fingers and likely rendered his hand unusable.
The Leader fell to the ground, bleeding, green blood, while Tony collapsed on top of him.
The weight of the armor did not harm Skrull physiology, instead of fear the Leader laughed when he saw Tony had no cards left. But his face changed suddenly: he noticed Tony's chest beginning to heat up to dangerous temperatures. The heat burned him; he realized that if Tony's chest reactor exploded, the consequences would be catastrophic.
Sterns thought for a moment it was an empty threat, that Tony would not dare. Tony opened his helmet. His expression was cold and resolved, the Leader understood he was serious.
"Quick, initiate the plan," someone shouted.
Just as Tony's chest reactor reached critical temperatures and the risk of explosion neared one hundred percent, an antenna rose from the torch of the Statue of Liberty. Tony's suit shut down completely.
The antenna not only nullified powers but also neutralized the Leader's machine; everything stopped working. Finally, everyone could move again, except those who depended on armor — Vulture, Falcon, Iron Man — or pure technology like Vision.
A team equipped with special suits appeared and apprehended the villains suspiciously in time.
After the last incident, Tony had added a function to his suit, in the moment his systems shut down the armor would open automatically, freeing him. Even so, he was gravely injured and could not move. Wanda and Pietro were in similar condition, Pietro because of his injuries, Wanda unconscious from the injection she had been given.
"Don't worry, you are safe now," said one of the tactical team as the others hauled the villains away, "You don't need to be afraid, we will take care of these criminals."
The crowd, however, did not feel the same. They carried Pietro and Tony and brought them to Wanda's body, worried.
Suddenly the man who had just spoken approached Tony and his group.
"You don't need to worry, we will take these criminals away," he repeated.
At his words many remembered that the person who had basically mutilated himself for them was a wanted criminal.
Despite their mixed feelings no one dared intervene, they fell silent, but a girl in the crowd shouted indignantly,
"They are not criminals, they are heroes."
Her mother covered her mouth, but the voice had awakened others.
"Yes, they are heroes."
"You can't treat them like that."
"They risked their lives for us."
The crowd supported them. The man ignored them.
"They are criminals, and I will take them," he insisted.
At that moment Michael drew a weapon, as security at the site he had the right to carry it. Although they often used less-lethal arms, they had rifles for severe situations. The man in black, serious, looked at Michael who seemed very young.
"Do you understand what you are doing?" he asked.
"I am protecting a hero," Michael replied without fear.
"Who is in charge here?" the man asked, doubting Michael's authority.
Ethan stepped forward, "I am."
The man looked at him with disdain. "Control your people. My men have permission to fire," he said, pointing to his armed team.
"I will do what is right." Ethan nodded, "Form a perimeter, you have permission to fire. All responsibility is mine, so do not worry."
The man in black clenched his jaw. "Didn't you understand that I have permission to open fire?" he threatened. Ethan smiled calmly. "Didn't you hear? Mine do too."
The man lost his patience and ordered his men to shoot. Before his men pulled the trigger, a civilian stepped in front of Tony and his group.
"Do you think I wouldn't shoot a civilian?" one of the soldiers sneered.
But the situation changed when an old man stepped forward, "How about two?" he asked.
A woman stepped up beside him, "Or three?"
"And four?"
"Five!"
Then another, and another. Quickly a human wall formed between the tactical team and the group protecting the heroes: hundreds of people were there and more kept arriving.
In the end the armed men had no choice and withdrew temporarily to request orders. By the time they received instructions, they discovered the trio had already disappeared from the location.
---
Pietro woke up in a stark white hospital room, startled.
"Calm down, kid, take it easy," Tony said from his side.
Pietro turned to look, and the calm Tony's voice had provided crumbled at what he saw, Tony was in a wheelchair. His arms, although present, showed scars from multiple surgeries; they worked, but with limitations. His hands were completely unusable, and his legs, he would have to remain in a wheelchair from now on.
"What happened to you?" Pietro asked, shocked.
"You know, the job," Tony downplayed with a grimace.
"But..." Pietro could not find the words.
"Get that look off your face," Tony said to minimize it. "We just have to wait for Natasha to return and she'll fix it."
Remembering Natasha and Jean's powers, Pietro calmed a bit and asked again what had happened.
"In the end what we feared was confirmed: it was all a Skrull plan, just as we suspected. Although we foiled part of their intentions, the blow worked. As soon as the situation went public, or at least the parts they needed, the world descended into chaos. The Avengers, the most powerful heroes on the planet, lost, and they were about to die if not for the nullifier antenna.
The masses made themselves heard, the plan to build antennas was supported by the majority, governments allocated everything to make it possible, in just three months the world is almost completely filled with those things. Although I, more than anything Wanda, was destroying them, the speed of destruction could not keep up with their advance."
Pietro noticed a detail. "Wait, how many months did you say?"
"Three months," Wanda answered, entering the room and turning on the TV.
"You were unconscious for three months. You woke up just now. What irony, huh?" Wanda said.
Pietro did not understand what irony she meant until he saw the live broadcast: thousands gathered before a huge futuristic tower, the scene resembling a famous launch. Only one piece was missing, when it was placed the antenna linked with all the others around the world.
From that moment, the Skrulls have total control over powers worldwide.
"So they did it," Pietro said in surprise, he had not expected to wake up to a recorded defeat.
Bruce had told them the antenna did more than nullify powers, and although he never explained exactly what it did, Tony did not spend three months drowning in his own misery, after investigating he discovered the antenna allows the Skrulls to use others' powers without needing DNA.
"For what purpose?" Pietro asked.
"According to Fury, their homeworld was destroyed. Most likely they want ours, they make sure no one can stop them and at the same time they gain powers, killing two birds with one stone, they are efficient," Tony explained sarcastically.
"So they succeeded?" Pietro murmured. "They planned this kind of... secret invasion for years and in the end they succeeded."
"They succeeded, now they are on top," Wanda confirmed.
For years the superheroes dominated the era, protecting people and often overriding governments. Now the Skrulls were on top without others knowing: they infiltrated, rose slowly, positioned themselves at the highest levels of the world, and once they ensured nothing could stop them, they began their global invasion in secret.
While the three pondered the grim future, a portal like waves of water spinning in a pale blue color appeared in the room. Leonardo stepped out of it.
"That's right," he said, catching the three's attention. "And now that they are on top, and think they've won, it is time to bring them down for good."
______________________________________
+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)