Discimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don’t worry, I am pletely sober).

  Manhattan

  –Jack Sullivan–

  Huff Huff

  He huffed as he sat down on the grouo the corpse of Wei. trary to what one might expect, there was no joy on his fao happiness at defeating a foe who had given him the hardest fight of both of his lives.

  The man just would not go down. Even with his stomach looking more and more like Swiss cheese, the man just would not go down.

  Instead, it had seemed as if being injured more only gave him more power to go on.

  He sighed in exhaustion and even that small a caused him a world of pain. It was a testament to Wei’s prowess that even his healing powers were taking lohan they had ever taken to heal the hundreds of small cuts and stab wounds that had been inflicted on his body.

  Dozens of times, he had tried to perform the mental recalibration but the man had somehow caught on to his strategy and made his head intangible. Yeah, he could do partial intangibility as well.

  Such a cheat power, even more so than Obito’s.

  The saving grace was that he could not do that for anything other than his head or it required more tration or something, he did not know. What he did know was that after the first 30 or so attempts, he had just…given up. He had resigned himself to killing an i man today. Probably. He didly know the person but he did know that his as in the past few days were not his fault.

  He might have to look more into his background and figure out if he had a family or not. They might appreciate something to bury….or burn, whatever.

  He ehe body of Wei, who was still smiling even ih but this smile was not the same bloodthirsty grin as the one who was hell-bent on killing him. No, this smile eaceful. It was serene and calm in a way that veyed acceptance….somehow.

  Shaking his head, he bahose thoughts from his mind and floated to Stark Tower, coughing out blood as he did so. Yeah, he could heal from pretty muything but having twin daggers shredding your insides would damage anyone. Hell, he was w how the hell he was even awake after enduring that much pain. Shredded internal ans or not, he was now flying wobbly on his way to stop this invasion.

  It had gone on long enough. The property damage alone was astronomical and thinking of the ck of support that most unities would suffer from after this event, made him see the oning of a hideous Migraine.

  “Ugh,” He groaned softly as he fell down on one knee as soon as he reached the baly of Stark Tower.

  He heard a thud sound and looked up to see one of Tony’s suits. He was expeg it to be either Tony himself or Jarvis to speak up from the suits but he was very surprised to see Romanoff’s face after the facepte receded.

  “Romanoff?” He asked her, surprised, theried to i some levity into the situation, “Isn’t that too…tight for you?”

  He snickered at his own joke. God, the blood loss must be getting to him.

  “e on, we saw the entire fight. Just who is he?” She said as she slid one of her arms under his shoulder and literally propped him up. Good lord, he just wao go home and take a long hot shower and then curl up in his bed for a month.

  “Who knows? He was under Loki’s trol as well. Gotta say that was the hardest fight I have been in. I feel like crap,” He said and he meant it. He robably running on pure adrenaline and his battered healing factor.

  “ARGGGH!” Both of them paused as they heard a very vengeful scream behind them. He turned back with difficulty and immediately, his shoulders drooped in resignation as he saas ing.

  “Oh, e on.” He muttered as he let himself drop down to his knees as Loki, riding on one of the stragglers that he had taken over, soared over his form and crashed into the penthouse, destroying it further. God, Tony was going to be so annoyed when he finds out that knog it all down and rebuilding it from the ground up robably better and cheaper than repairing the building.

  “You Tiny Mortals. I am a God.” Loki’s form swayed out from the dust cloud, as his entire body was one giant bruise at this point. Well, he had kicked him straight into a whole other building. Granted, he had held back but not so much. Loki was a God, after all. He could take it.

  “I will not be bullied-Aaa” Loki’s words stopped midway as Romanoff just bsted him with a repulsor bst courtesy of Natasha Romanoff.

  “Thanks,” He muttered to her weakly as she once again propped him up. They slowly made their way to Loki whose chest was smoking although his unduting chest motio that he was still alive, thank god for that.

  “Stark? Yeah, I got him. He’s in bad shape but he will live,” Romanoff muttered to Tony from inside her suit. They looked to the side as another volley of missiles struck a flyihan, redireg its attention away from Stark Tower.

  “All this means nothing if we don’t close that portal,” Romanoff muttered as she set him up, leaning up against a wall. Wei’s body followed them to rest right o Loki’s, still the green barrier.

  He opened his mouth to tell her but coughed violently instead, coughing up blood that he wiped almost immediately but the a was not left unnoticed by her.

  “I know how to close it,” He said iween coughs that wracked his entire body. God, it was very slow going, the healing process. He had so many broken bones and stab wounds that it would take the better part of a day t him back to peak dition, especially with all the blood loss.

  “How?!” Romanoff excimed as she once again helped him stand up a bit. With some difficulty, he willed his barriers to operate his body like a marioe.

  “Using this,” He said as he created another barrier around the sceptre that was just lying behind Loki, stu the wall.

  “How could you possibly know that?” The suspi in her voice was warranted but now was not the time for that. He had waited long enough for the o e. The damage to the city iling up and they had already had a close call with one of the Air Force pilots who lost aire arm to Chitauri attacks before he was rescued.

  Well, he had pyed his part and he didn’t know about anyone else, but he for one was doh this fight.

  “I just do,” He smirked at her, not that she could see it, what with his entire face having just two fming eyes. He did not want anybody to see his real face but it would be safe to say that his carefree days of living with Pops were now over.

  Pity, he liked living with that whimsian with a unique perspective on life.

  Slowly, carefully, he floated on top of the Tower and nded harshly in front of the portal mae, housing the Tesseract. He could feel the power of the barrier that surrouhe Tesseract.

  “Stark, we have a way of shutting down the portal,” Romanoff said as he covered the barrier sceptre into a series of barriers so that he could exert enough force to breach the shield though judging by the movies, even Romanoff could do it so it might not be necessary but it never hurt to be prudent.

  “What! WHY?” He whirled on Romanoff who excimed very loudly, the duress in her voice very clear to him, making his head dizzy from the sudden movement.

  He stumbled back a step towards the Tesseract, “What happened?”

  Romanoff’s face was revealed as the facepte receded, showing him a face full of horror and terror.

  Her voice was aghast as she said, “N-here’s a nuke headed our way,”

  His pupils shrank as he heard that. No, this was not the time. He could have closed the portal before that and in the first pce, the Helicarrier was grounded so where did the Nuke even e from?

  The sceptre ged to the ground as he readied himself to go there and help Stark.

  “I have to go. We have to redirect the Nuke,” He mumbled as he tried to lift himself but the small a of looking up brought a head-splitting ache along with it.

  “What! No. You are in no dition to do anything. Tony is on his way,” Romanoff said as she held onto his barrier with the suit, afraid that he would leave anyway, despite his terrible dition.

  “Tony, is there any way you aim the raight into the portal?”

  “o–Okay. Okay, he is going to do it,”

  He nodded with difficulty as he faatasha, the feeling of the barrier behind him very close to his barriers as he had stumbled very close to the Tesseract mae.

  He had to wait for Tony and then try and knock him off course without toug the Nuke because there was no guarahat the man could make the journey ba this timeline as well.

  He closed his eyes and tried to summon some sensory barriers so that he could keep a closer eye on his surroundings but before he could even summon a single ohere was a high-pitched whining noise in the air as Romanoff yelled in obvious distress, “NOOOO!”

  ________xx__________

  Deep Space [At the same time]

  –The Other–

  Useless. Utterly useless.

  He had warned his master that Asgardians were little better than monkeys but he saw some value in the sed prince of Asgard, probably because of the y.

  He had the pleasure of breaking him, moulding him, for their purpose for a period of time far shorter than he would have liked it to be but as, his Master’s words are absolute, and as such, he had healed the little prince as best as he could a him on his way to Midgard.

  Earth. They called their pself dirt. Not surprising sidering the value of that little dirtball was in fact, less than dirt.

  His Master had sent Loki to Midgard with the sceptre, which housed an Infinity Stone, because he had hoped to secure the Tesseract that was on Midgard for some reason.

  The All-Father Odin, for some reason, had stowed the Tesseract, an invaluable artifaidgard instead of on Asgard. Of course, it was not his pment on the affairs of the All-Father.

  As much as the current Asgardians were little more than monkeys, their All-Father, Odin Borson was the furthest thing from a monkey. One of the stro beings in all of the os, capable of defeating even his Master, in his prime that is.

  As much as his previous thoughts could be sidered Bsphemy, to the likes of Ebony Maw, he knew, as did his Master, that those thoughts were true. That was the only reason why his Master had avoided venturing into the Nine realms, for they were the territory of a powerhouse on a simir level as his Master, perhaps even above.

  As, that was the truth when Odin was in his prime. Now, he was barely a shadow of his previous might and even still, his Master was wary of entering his realm and taking the Tesseract from his grasp.

  So, they had sent Loki. They had ced upon the dying prin the void and had been very surprised to see an Asgardian Prin such a state but a quitrusion (which was not at all gentle) into the Prince’s mind revealed everything.

  The resulting fear from Loki after he had realised the sanctity of his mind had been vioted repeatedly was….delicious.

  If it was in his hands, he would have tortured the Prince for ay, leaving him a husk of his former self, only to then show that to Asgard to destroy their morale.

  Oh, what a glorious pn it was.

  Only, his Master had other pns and so, he had patched up Loki’s mind (after leaving in a backdoor of course) a him leave with the sceptre, after his Master had ordered him t him the Tessera exge for lending Loki the Chitauri.

  He had been happy at Loki’s progress at first, especially after seeing the powerful (retive to mortals obviously) subordihat he had mao secure.

  He had beeo see that Loki had systematically destroyed the burgeonihat was being built to stop him, whilst also ending the stro batant they had.

  He could feel the power of that Green Guardian through his e with Loki and he owerful. Not as powerful as his Master but powerful enough that he would have been able to defeat any of the Bck Order individually and maybe even together.

  It was good ridda then, that same individual showed up once again, when the portal had opened up, allowing the Chitauri to invade Midgard. Only that the first wave of Chitauri were sliced apart and then forced bato the portal until he had given the order for the Mothership itself to act.

  How humiliating. To use that for a p as backwater as Midgard.

  Still, this attack had opened his eyes to the threat the Midgard posed to his Master’s goals. Sure, his Master was more than capable of taking down anybody in the Nine Realms save for the All-Father himself but why burden his Master when he could take care of it himself?

  The ensuing fight with Loki athetic, if it could even be called a fight. The exiled prince lost the fight in a single exge and was unscious for most of the invasion.

  The fight was dominated by his subordinate who showed startling proficy with his powers, almost killing the Green Guardian. He would have been a fine didate for the Bck Order had he been raised from birth by his Master.

  As, the Green Guardian mao best even him, albeit not without paying a heavy cost in exge.

  He could see that the Green Guardian was on his st legs, the weakest he had ever been in this fight and hope rose in his heart when he saw the little Prince wake up and charge the Green Guardian.

  Those hopes were promptly shattered as Loki was immediately knocked out, not by the Green Guardian but by some other mortal.

  Oh, how low has Asgard fallen for someone like Loki to be the Sed Prince?

  Through his e with the sceptre, he watched as the Green Guardian dragged his battered body up to the Tesserad a thought entered his mind at that very moment.

  It was slightly rebellious, sidering that Master had ordered him to destroy any evidehat could lead back to their involvement in Loki’s pn for Midgard but the what-if kept lingering in his mind.

  What if he could take care of the stro possible oppohat Master would have to fa his quest to gather the Infinity Stones? What if he could kill the Green Guardian, right there and now, at his weakest?

  It had taken exploiting the situation to the best of Loki’s abilities and a stroke of lu finding an exceptionally powerful subordih the right skill set, on top of an ongoing Chitauri Invasion, for the Green Guardian to be severely weakened. He could not predict if they would gain a better opportunity anytime soon.

  Wouldn’t it be better to kill their oppos now, when they were weak and helpless, instead of when they were ready and waiting for them, potentially losing most or all of the Bck Order?

  Those were the thoughts that rang through his mind as he poured forth all his siderable might into the e he had fed with the sceptre over all his years of studying it. It helped that his greatest creation, made with the help of the Mind Stone, amplified his e with the sceptre, allowing him to use more of the Gem’s powers.

  He grinned in satisfa as the sceptre was suffused with the yellow energies of the gem and rammed itself straight into the Green Guardian’s chest, the positioning of the sceptre making it an eveer oute.

  Word t - 2824

  A/N - A slight ge of pns. chapter is the end of this arc. I promise

  Also, cliffhanger-kun makes a return though this is very small and less frustrating, I Hope.

  If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you head on to my P*treon.

  I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

  A/N - I promise the Invasion Ards chapter.