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The floor of the Helicarrier's control center was a chaotic mess of sparking wires, blinking alarms, and panicked S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel. Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, arriving from the engine bay, strode through the devastation.
Steve glanced at the massive, still-smoking hole in the floor and then at Fury. He pulled out another ten dollars and handed it over. "I thought nothing could surprise me after the giant flying aircraft carrier," he muttered, his voice grim. "I was wrong. You win that bet, too."
But the dark humor died instantly. Hill was staring at a console screen, her face ashen.
"Director," she whispered, her voice tight with suppressed horror. "Loki… he escaped. He used his scepter to slice open the cell. He neutralized the containment systems." Her breath hitched. "And he threw Thor off the Helicarrier."
Fury slammed his fist on the metal console, leaving a deep dent. "Get me eyes on Coulson's location! Now!"
The team followed him with grim urgency through the panicked corridors. They arrived at the maximum-security cell block. The door was jaggedly sliced open, and Agent Coulson lay on the ground, a growing pool of scarlet blooming beneath him. There was a shocking, cauterized hole in his chest.
"Sir…" Coulson coughed, a thin spray of blood appearing on his lips. "The scepter… it's a terrifying weapon. It… it works. I'm sorry, sir." His eyes, kind and professional to the end, dimmed and went vacant.
A heavy, absolute silence fell over the command center. Coulson was the bridge between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers, the one good man who spoke to everyone. His death was a raw, immediate wound.
Tony stared at the body, his usual glibness dissolving into stunned, impotent rage. Steve dropped to his knee, his jaw set in cold, unforgiving fury.
Then, a quiet, sharp CRACK echoed in the corridor. Hermione, who had been standing at the edge of the group, vanished.
Everyone assumed she was gone out of grief, a child fleeing the raw horror of death. But in the brief, desperate moment before she Apparated, her mind had screamed one brutal truth: This is my fault. I brought the Scepter here. I put it in their hands.
"Right," Fury said, standing up, his face a hard, unyielding mask of controlled fury. "We've been hit. Hard. The objective is now revenge. And containment."
Half an hour later, inside a high-speed Quinjet, the Avengers prepared for deployment. Steve was clad in his tactical uniform, gripping his shield. Natasha and a recovered, newly armed Clint Barton were in black combat gear. Tony, encased in his repaired armor, was checking comms. Their mission was no longer a simple recovery operation. It was a war.
The Quinjet screamed over the heart of Manhattan and landed atop Stark Tower.
As he reached the penthouse, Tony was surprised to find Loki waiting for him, seated casually on the shattered dining table, the Tesseract glowing with malevolent blue light in a container beside him.
"Please tell me you're here to apologize," Tony growled, his armor already aiming a repulsor blast.
"I am a god, Stark," Loki sneered, a theatrical, arrogant smile on his face. "I do not apologize."
Loki raised his Scepter, pointing it at Tony's arc reactor. Tony's armor glowed faintly, resisting the mental attack. The newly synthesized palladium core, a product of his father's research, was resilient.
"What's the matter, Bambi?" Tony taunted, his voice dry. "Having performance issues? Can't get it up?"
Loki's face twisted in rage. He grabbed Tony by the neck and hurled him out of the massive window.
Tony roared, activating his full flight systems mid-fall, the suit accelerating as he recovered. He shot back up, hovering before the shattered window.
Loki didn't wait. He plunged the Scepter into the Tesseract's containment unit.
"Om—"
A deafening, sustained sonic boom erupted from the top of the tower. A brilliant, vertical beam of blue energy shot up into the sky. High above the city, reality tore open. A massive, circular black hole, a portal to the cosmic void, stabilized itself over Manhattan.
And from that terrible aperture, the Chitauri poured forth. Countless metal-and-chitin soldiers, riding jet-propelled gliders, swarming the sky like a plague of locusts. Energy beams—blue and destructive—rained down on the high-rise buildings. The sounds of explosions, falling glass, and screaming civilians tore through the air.
Tony, fueled by cold vengeance, didn't hesitate. He shot into the sky, firing his repulsors in long, devastating bursts.
He was not alone. From the east, a red cape and a flash of lightning. Thor, having crashed to Earth in a moment of fury, arrived, his hammer summoning thunder. From the streets below, Steve Rogers and Natasha moved as a coordinated unit, engaging the ground troops.
And then, with a deafening, final roar, the Hulk emerged from the wreckage of a bank, his skin green, his fury absolute, and he leaped onto the nearest Chitauri vessel, tearing it apart with his bare hands. The Avengers had fully assembled.
But the portal was still open. And slowly, agonizingly, a massive, armored, serpentine shape began to emerge from the black void, a monstrous, living engine of war—the Leviathan. The scope of the threat had just grown infinitely larger.