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Manhattan
–Tony Stark–
"I have tried shutting down the Arc Reactor but it is a self-sustaining reaction now. It cannot be stopped," His suit stumbled around as he heard Jarvis' report.
He should have known Loki would go after his tower. That narcissistic ego of his would not have been satisfied if he did not have an audience to go with his spectacle. What better way to mock the so-called guardians of humanity than to start the invasion by using the inventions of the humans themselves?
The suit itself was not in any better condition. He had three different suits on their way from their fabrication facilities but the closest was one in Stark Tower and he was on his way there himself so he had ordered Jarvis to keep it there and look for Loki.
Locking down the tower did not help, like at all because Loki just performed his voodoo magic and somehow bypassed every single obstacle, only for his entire team to appear on the rooftop, already hooked up to the Arc Reactor.
By the time Jarvis could shut down the reactor, it had already been too late. According to what Jarvis could predict, the machine might have opened a portal before he could even reach the Tower.
He gnashed his teeth as he thought of Jack and his sad smile as he melded in with the huge green shield that held up the Helicarrier, allowing for thousands of lives to be saved. He couldn't even do anything with his stab wound as he somehow mustered forth enough power to stop the Helicarrier's hull from snapping in two if it crashed into the ocean water directly like that.
The majority of the force that the water exerted was borne by Jack's barriers, allowing the water to soften and the Helicarrier to land safely.
He could have escaped, so so easily. He could have escaped hundreds of times before they crashed into the ocean but no, he had to stay. He was in no condition to even protect himself properly as his armour had dissolved, his entire focus being on the carrier.
He had never thought that one person could become so strong. Not even the Hulk could have stopped the carrier, even if he did have the strength to do so. He would always hate Loki for that. He knew what Jack would do to protect people and he exploited that, even so far as to bring in someone who was able to bypass Jack's barrier and almost killed him for it.
"Jarvis?" He took in a deep breath of determination and gave the order for something that he had told himself would never be needed unless Armageddon was on them.
Well, this was war, and…he was fresh out of patience and damns to give.
"Activate project Aegis…."
"....Affirmative. Project Aegis activated. ETA - 119 seconds," Jarvis reported as he could finally see the Tower in view.
"Loki?"
"He is in the penthouse, sir. He seems to be waiting for someone,"
"Well, what are you waiting for, then? Activate the spinning rims," He said as his suit's repulsor arrays gave out, dropping him roughly on the platform he had designed on a whim, to give himself even more of a fancy entry.
Well, it was safe to say that a nice entry was the last thing on his mind as he saw Loki looking at him and then retreating back into the penthouse as he too exited the suit, wincing in pain as some parts came off rougher than expected due to the damage it had gone through.
"I would say welcome to my house but…you did kinda break in without an invitation," He quipped as he slid the bracelets on his wrist. They would help the suits remotely locate him and then just slide on top of him.
"Stall all you want to, Stark. My army is coming," Loki said as he walked back to the balcony, his staff firmly in his hand. That was something that was the most dangerous weapon of Loki. He would have to make sure that he does not get him under control as well. That would not go well…., especially with Project AEGIS on its way.
He took his drink and walked to the lane that he knew was where Jarvis would eject his suit. "Well, you might want to pace yourself a bit there. You pissed off a lot of people back there with your little stunt."
"Oh? And what would those people do to me? I have an army."
"Well, we have a Hulk….and Thor," He found himself saying whatever came to his mind, hoping to prolong this conversation a bit so as to allow Jarvis to perform the final checks.
"I thought the beast had wandered off? Fine work from the Green Guardian by the way. Green Guardian, what an idiotic name," Loki scoffed as he finally turned around to face him.
His smile strained as Loki, that bastard had the gall to say Jack's name. His fists clenched as he stopped himself from doing anything rash. Any moment now, Jarvis would activate the floor defenses and fling the suit at him.
"Besides, who would have the time to worry about me when…." His throat ran dry as he saw Loki marching towards him.
'Any moment now,' He thought to himself as he forced his face into a look of nonchalance.
"....When they will have to worry about you…" Loki said as he tapped his sceptre on his chest. He closed his eyes, fearing the worst but then opened one when he didn't feel any different.
He saw the hilariously confused face of Loki as he charged up the sceptre once again and tapped it once again, right on top of his reactor. Maybe it had something to do with the energy in his reactor. Maybe it disrupted the energy flow from the sceptre? If it was true, then it was one hell of a coincidence.
In the literal life and death scenario, he found himself remembering Jack's stupid comments and he couldn't help himself, "....Performance issues? I have heard one in five men haaaa-"
His words were stuck in his throat as Loki just lifted him by the throat and walked straight to the edge of the balcony.
He looked straight at the release wall and muttered, as he held onto Loki's hand, "Anytime now, Jarvis,"
Loki sneered at him and then flung him off his own tower. He immediately reoriented himself mid-air and spread his arms out.
In the tower above, as soon as Loki flung Tony out, multiple turrets just flashed out of the roof as well as the floor and peppered Loki with the highest caliber bullets Jarvis could find. At the same time, the suit was finally done and he launched it straight at Loki, who dodged it but stumbled back due to the sheer force from both the suit and the Gatling guns on the roof.
While the bullets didn't actually puncture his skin, they hurt a lot, even for someone of his constitution so Loki found himself being pushed back bit by bit. Jarvid didn't let up even as he confirmed his creator had equipped the suit and was on his way to stop Loki.
"And there is one other person you pissed off rather mightily,"
Loki looked to the armoured Stark as the bullets finally stopped peppering him. He lifted the sceptre but he was too slow as Tony just blasted him with his repulsors.
"...Me,"
"Project AEGIS ETA - 30 seconds," Jarvis helpfully reminded him just as he was about to head in and knock Loki out. Jarvis' next update was aborted forcefully as another situation developed right on top of the Tower.
"Better make it quick, Jarvis," He said as he rocketed towards the portal, already seeing the armies that were heading their way.
"I believe that we have just earned ourselves precious time, sir."
What? He was about to ask but the words were stuck in his throat as he saw a majestic Gundam appear out of thin air, holding both of his hands right underneath the portal as if trying to plug the gap.
"JACK!" He screamed as he immediately floated to the head where he hoped he would be.
"Stark, evacuate the people. I will stop them for now."
He had a thousand questions but he nodded and went back down where he could already see people panicking as they tried to run away from the hellish portal in the sky. It was small mercies that they had not seen the numbers of their army on the other side. Even Jarvis' sensors could not tell him the full story and that terrified him.
There were possibly millions…hundreds of millions of them on the other side of that blue hole in the sky.
"Jarvis, hack into everything and tell everyone to evacuate. Contact the Mayor, Army Generals, Air Force, Navy, hell call the President if you have to. We have little time before the fighting really begins." He said as he worked on the strategies.
Project Aegis had to wait for a bit because if Jack himself could handle the situation, there was no need for him to expose that part. That could land him into really hot soup because there was no way in hell he was going to sell that to anyone.
In the meantime, "Showtime," He muttered as what could only be described as a flying hot dog appeared in front of him.
He immediately dove into the opening in the centre. This was a remote weapons platform, designed to resupply him with everything he might need for prolonged warfare situations.
"Rubber Ducky please, Jarvis," he murmured as the suit entered from one side a small humanoid-sized suit and came out the other side a hulking monstrosity not smaller than the Hulk.
Its job done, the platform flew away but still close by in case he needed something.
"Jarvis, how are we on the evacuation?"
He said as he and the other two suits, which had finally arrived from their respective fabrication sites, immediately began clearing the nearby blocks. Stuffing people into cars and then floating them away. Clearing the streets of abandoned vehicles, etc.
"Evacuation roughly 1% done, sir,"
Well, shit.
His neck snapped up as there was a horrible breaking sound as the entire Gundam holding the portal close broke apart as a huge horned whale-like creature burst out of it.
"Jaarvis?"
"Sensors indicate Arc Reactor running out of energy before the armour is breached, sir,"
He goggled as he saw that despite his armour being limbless, Jack had not yet given up.
The whale-like creature had broken through the barrier but not without cost, it would seem. Most of the armour that covered its head had broken apart, even stabbing it but it seemed to ignore its injuries, focusing on escaping the portal and then wreaking havoc on the city.
Well, Jack was not having it because he immediately pulled his other arm back and punched the whale-like creature, straight back in the portal from where it was coming from.
"Sir, we have a situation," Jarvis pointed his attention to the form of Loki who was charging up his sceptre from the looks of it after destroying the floor and ceilings of his penthouse, destroying the guns. It was a mistake on his part not to install repulsor based weaponry in the tower. With the Arc Reactor installed in the building, Jarvis could have waged war by himself if he had been given the weapons for it.
"Jarvis, remind me to install remotely guidable weaponry for you in every home," He said as one of the suits immediately abandoned their current tasks and rocketed to the penthouse balcony, on which Loki was currently standing. It was very satisfying to watch Loki get grabbed by the suit as it broke through the balcony as if it was not there at all and throw Loki in the air with his sceptre falling down on the balcony, its glow dying down as Loki was no longer wielding it.
Jarvis threw Loki towards the hulking form of Jack who promptly understood the assignment and just kicked Loki like a soccer ball, throwing him straight into the building in front of Stark Tower. It seemed as if Jack had held back, perhaps due to Thor so Loki did not exit that building and fly through three other buildings before finally stopping.
Speaking of Thor, he watched as a Quinjet arrived and landed in Central Park. Thor was the first one to arrive on top of the tower, looking at the green avatar with relief and awe clear in his eyes.
He could see that the area around the Tower was cleared up so he headed up to meet up with Thor, Jarvis coordinating the evacuation process with the two other suits.
Two times, Jack's barriers broke two times as the whale-like creatures tried to make a comeback but Jack dispatched them the same, straight back into the portal. The only problem was that Jack was unable to completely close the portal due to the hyper-dense energy in the middle of the beam.
So, small stragglers still got by but Jack got most of them, and the ones that did make it past him, Thor and he took care of them.
"Friend Guardian. He made it," Thor said to him as he threw Mjolnir at the small hover vehicle that Jack missed.
"Yeah, somehow, against all odds, he made it. I don't know how though. By all accounts, he should be dead." He said as he monitored the progress in the background. One of the suits had encountered Barton and Widow and was in the process of bringing them to the Tower.
The evacuation process was only hastened once Jarvis took over traffic management systems of the city and after coordinating with the NYPD which was under the orders of the Mayor, who himself was under orders from the President, to follow his lead and now most of the areas around the tower had been emptied.
That would not be enough though because Jack would have to stop sometime because this was the same situation as before, just the load was little. They would have to look for a way to close the portal because judging by the numbers they had on their side, they could go on for months without making a dent in their numbers and he was sure that Jack could not do that.
"Stark?" His comms flared to life as a familiar gruff voice sounded in his HUD.
"Fury?"
"Backup is on the way but the way things are—"
"Yeah, I don't think jets and missiles are going to help us here. That would damage the city more than the aliens. Still, let them come. We could use all the help we can. Primarily, just flex your muscles and get the city evacuated quickly. The people are just sitting ducks if we cannot hold the portal for long. We are at less than 10% done and Ja–Green Guardian cannot hold on forever,"
"...Got it,"
"Hmm, Thor, can you hit it with lightn—"
"What the…" His words were stopped midway as red alerts started blaring on his HUD as Jarvis detected a truly humongous wave of energy coming from the portal.
He was about to warn Jack but he seemed to have realised it as well as he abandoned his form and immediately crashed on the floor next to them, clad in his armoured form.
He looked up to see a white light fill the other end of the portal, reminiscent of the sun. Maybe he could use Project AEGIS here? But they would not be on time.
He was jerked out of his thoughts as a green barrier wrapped around him and Thor, tightly wounding them up. At the same time, hundreds of small shields appeared in front of them which then moulded around the energy beam of the Tesseract, creating seven blocks of green, that blended in with the blue from the Tesseract.
Not a moment later, he was blinded as he was assaulted by white as far as his vision could go as the beam must have struck Jack's barriers.
"Jarvis? Jarvis?" he mumbled as he tried to cycle through all the sensors available to him only to find most of them giving him nonsense readings.
His heat readings showed temperature readings exceeding the levels measured on the surface of the Sun. He tried to connect to his other suits but all of his signals were jammed.
He could not even sense Thor or Jack standing right beside him, so great was the energy interference.
All he could hear was the sound of something huge breaking apart. That must be the barriers that Jack had conjured to protect them. He counted one, two, three, four barriers breaking before the temperatures around him receded, turning into cooking oil temperature before turning into heat wave temperature before finally receding into a warm bath temperature.
His vision finally cleared up, as did the communication error as his uplink was finally restored.
"...Si…Sir? Sir?" Jarvis' alarmed voice sounded in his suit but he was too busy flabbergasted to reply to him.
All he could do was gape as he looked at the destruction surrounding him.
He looked up to see the remaining three barriers dissipating as the portal was finally left unguarded, causing the Chitauri to energy out of it in huge numbers.
The whale-like things immediately began spreading out to maximize their reach.
He could see Jarvis heading after the whale-like creatures using his suits as he himself immediately entered the resupply platform, and repaired the comms array on his suit. As soon as he came out of the platform, he looked at the surroundings of the tower and let out a shuddering breath of fear and awe.
That beam had enough energy to melt down the surrounding areas on top of melting the streets around Stark Tower as well and that was after the majority of it was stopped by Jack's shields.
The only reason Stark Tower was not a molten piece of slag was due to Jack.
He looked at the ever-emerging Chitauri who seemed to have no end to them and remembered their member lists, half of which were nearly useless in a fight with the whale creature and one of them was even missing.
"Jarvis, alert me once Banner is back in town,"
"Very well, sir.'
"Also, start manufacturing. We are going to need a lot more than just three suits,"
He immediately set out to stop the small hover vehicles from going too far out of the perimeter. That was the best he could do at the moment. Unfortunately, the bigger fish must be kept for Thor, Jack, and Banner when he finally shows up with his green ass.
Word Count - 3188
If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon.
I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.
A/N - The Chitauri must have something of note in that mothership of theirs. In this case, it was an energy weapon of death that was thankfully stopped by Jack. Otherwise, bye bye Avengers Tower.