Thor's reclamation of his power was the only spark of hope for the Avengers.
The situation on the ground had become dire. Laufey had struck again, unleashing the Casket of Ancient Winters on another American metropolis. Millions had been flash-frozen into statues of ice in a matter of seconds.
The President was in a state of near-collapse, unable to comprehend why the xenos had focused their spite solely on the United States. In the halls of the Pentagon, voices whispered that the invaders should have at least targeted the European Union or the Russian Federation—the "Great Bear" of the East—before striking the same nation twice.
Public opinion was a boiling cauldron of terror and fury. The newly inaugurated President faced immediate calls for impeachment as the nation realized its conventional defenses were useless against the cold of Jotunheim.
On the Helicarrier, Nick Fury was stalling the World Security Council's demands to release Loki, but even his legendary patience was fraying. It was a race against the clock: find the Tesseract, or watch the world turn into a tomb.
"I have it!"
The shout echoed from the laboratory. Bruce Banner, his eyes bloodshot from a twenty-four-hour vigil, stumbled out into the corridor. "The gamma signature... it's spiking in the heart of New York City. The Tesseract is being activated at Stark Tower!"
The Avengers turned as one toward Emrys. He sat in his chair, eyes closed, radiating a stillness that was more unsettling than the chaos around them. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
"Depart for New York," he commanded, his voice a calm blade. "It is time to settle the blood debt."
As the Helicarrier banked toward Manhattan, Emrys ran through the strategic variables.
In some fragmented histories of this world, a handful of "heroes" had supposedly stopped a Chitauri invasion by fighting in the streets. To Emrys, a man raised in the doctrine of the Great Crusade, that notion was delusional. If the Chitauri Commander possessed even a shred of tactical competence, they wouldn't waste time chasing civilians or playing cat-and-mouse with the Avengers.
War was about efficiency. The Chitauri's greatest asset was their sheer numerical superiority and their orbital presence.
The Tesseract is the lynchpin, Emrys mused. Protect the portal, and the war is won by attrition. Leave it undefended, and you deserve the executioner's block. In his mind, he saw the battlefield through the eyes of a Warmaster.
He didn't care about the God of Thunder's stamina or the Hulk's rage. Against an endless tide, even the strongest would eventually drown. Barton, Romanoff, Rogers—they were mere mortals, insignificant in the face of a true planetary conquest.
But Emrys knew he couldn't rely on the enemy's incompetence. Unlike the trickster Loki, Laufey was a king of ice and iron. He would likely fortify the Tesseract with his elite Frost Giants, ensuring the bridge stayed open.
If the portal wasn't closed immediately, Earth would become a meat-grinder. This was a scenario Emrys wanted to avoid. He was, at his core, a man of profit and efficiency. Deploying his full Legions here would draw the eye of the Sorcerer Supreme, and he had no interest in a direct confrontation with the Ancient One over a world he didn't yet wish to fully annex.
The solution was clear: a decapitation strike.
The Chitauri were a hive-mind collective, a synthesis of biology and machine controlled by a central mothership. If the command-and-control node could be neutralized, the entire army would collapse into scrap.
The Avengers are suited for this, Emrys decided. They have the 'protagonist's luck' required for such a high-risk boarding action. If they fail this, they are useless to me.
Then there was the matter of Laufey himself.
The Casket of Ancient Winters was the wild card. It was an Alpha-class relic, capable of planetary-scale flash-freezing. In a direct confrontation, even his Dark Angels would struggle against the absolute zero of the Jotun vaults. He could send Marcus or another high-level Librarian to counter the energy, but a psychic clash of that magnitude risked tearing the veil or drawing the Sorcerer Supreme into the fray.
As he weighed the risks of a localized Warp-breach versus the Casket's frost, a sound like the world tearing in half echoed through the Helicarrier's hull.
Emrys looked toward the horizon.
In the sky above Manhattan, a pillar of brilliant azure light punched through the clouds, carving a hole in the heavens. From that jagged wound in reality, a river of silver and black poured forth—thousands of Chitauri chariots and massive Leviathans, screaming as they descended toward the skyscrapers.
The invasion had begun.