The Battle
Before I knew it, we were heading into New York. And toward a column of blue Tesseract power rising to the sky. And toward an army of Chitauri that seemed to be coming from the portal.
Well. This should be fun.
“Stark, we’re on your three headed northeast.” Natasha said into the coms.
His snarky reply came back crystal clear. “What, did you stop for drive-through? Swing up Park. I’m gonna lay ‘em out for ya.”
Nat and Clint shot down some of the aliens before taking the jet up next to the balcony of Stark Tower. From that vantage point, we could clearly see Thor and Loki battling it out.
“Nat…?” Clint spoke.
“I see him,” was all she said before maneuvering the jet to fire at Loki. Unfortunately, instead of doing any damage to Loki, he shot a blast of power at us, and we started going down fast.
Steve and I were simply standing in the back, and he grabbed my waist and a bar on the ceiling in order to keep us both balanced. I think we clipped a few buildings before finally coming to a crash land. Nat and Clint immediately started removing their headsets and harnesses. We all hurried out of the back hatch of the jet to see what chaos was already ensuing.
As we started running toward the tower, Steve said that we needed to get back up to where Loki was. We paused to watch a colossal,
mechanical beast snake through the sky. From its sides, more aliens were launched— off to harass more people.
“Stark, are you seeing this?” Steve asked.
“Seeing, still working on believing. Where’s Banner? Has he shown up yet?” Tony asked.
“Banner?”
“Just keep me posted.”
The four of us moved to find more cover beside an abandoned taxi.
Clint spoke first after he noticed people trying to hide out inside a bus. “We’ve got civilians still trapped up here.”
Some aliens flew over us, but I thought I caught a flash of green and gold.
“Loki.” Steve said.
The aliens with Loki started firing at the people running.
“They’re fish in a barrel down there…”
Natasha leapt into action and started firing both handguns. “We got this,” she said to Steve as more aliens surrounded us. “It’s good. Go.”
“Do you think you can hold ‘em off?”
“Captain,” Clint smirked. “It would be my genuine pleasure.”
“Stay safe, Evie.”
“You too, Cap,” I smiled.
Steve leapt off of the bridge, and I raced toward the bus. The metal doors were broken, so Clint and I heaved them apart manually. We covered the people who ran toward the building and safety, while Nat held off the aliens.
When everyone was safe, Clint and I helped Natasha. I conjured vines to grow from the ground and yank the aliens’ weapons away. Then I conjured large shards of ice and flung them at the aliens, killing them. I continued to act in this pattern, until I had amassed a large hoard of alien guns. Then I just started a mini tornado which sucked the remaining aliens in and allowed me to kill them in one spot.
I heard Natasha say, “Just like Budapest all over again.”
“You and I remember Budapest very differently,” was Clint’s retort.
Steve knocked out two aliens who were coming up behind me, and a bolt of lightning fried a few others. Thor was here.
I immediately noticed his stumble as he landed. “Thor, where’s the injury?”
“Dagger wound to the stomach.”
I placed my hand and started healing the wound as Steve spoke. “What’s the story upstairs?”
“The power surrounding the Cube is impenetrable.”
I finished healing Thor as Tony spoke up. “Thor’s right. We gotta deal with these guys.”
Natasha handed Thor an extra com so he could hear us. “How do we do this?” She asked.
Steve looked at all of us in turn. “As a team.”
“I have unfinished business with Loki,” said Thor.
“Yeah? Get in line.” Clint shot back.
“Stop it you two!” I interjected. “Clint, you know what I’m going to do. Chill out. Thor, do you remember when I asked you what color Loki’s eyes are? And you said green?”
“… yes?” He looked at me with confusion on his face.
“Listen, Loki is being controlled by someone— just like he did to Clint. Only the magic surrounding him is stronger. I have to get to him to remove it. Then, he’ll be free, and hopefully he can help us find the guy who ordered him to do all of this.”
“You can save my brother?” Hope colored his face.
“…Yes,” I hesitantly said, praying that I really could help him.
“Evie, we will get you to Loki as soon as we can,” Steve said. “In the meantime, Loki is gonna keep this fighting on us, and that’s what we need. Without him, these things could run wild. We got Stark up top. He’s gonna need us to…” He turned at the sound of a motorcycle approaching.
“Bruce!” I yelled happily and ran over to hug him.
“So, this all seems horrible.”
“I’ve seen worse.” Natasha looked at him warily.
He grimaced. “Sorry.”
“No,” she said. “We could use a little worse.”
“Stark,” Steve said on the coms. “ We got him.”
“Banner?”
“Just like you said.”
“Then tell him to suit up. I’m bringing the party to you.”
The giant mechanical serpent rounded a corner, clearly chasing Tony.
“I don’t see how that’s a party…” Natasha said. I giggled at her response.
Bruce started walking toward the thing, which was now being driven into the street.
“Dr. Banner!” Steve said. “Now might be a really good time for you to get angry.”
Bruce turned back to us and smirked. “That’s my secret, Captain. I’m always angry.”
I watched with wide eyes as he transformed instantly, and punched that thing's nose right into the ground. Unfortunately, the tail seemed to be coming down on top of us.
“Hold on,” Tony said.
Steve shielded both himself and me, while Clint and Nat took cover behind an overturned car. All the aliens started screeching at the loss of their beast, and the Hulk just roared back.
Next thing I knew, we were all standing in a sort of circle, readying our weapons and ourselves for the battle ahead of us. I heard the click of Nat’s guns as she replaced her ammo next to me and saw Steve raise his shield to my other side. I let my hands glow blue.
“Guys…” Natasha raised our awareness to the portal where more of those beast things were emerging.
“Oh shit,” was all I could say.
“Call it, Captain.” Tony said. I would later realize that this was a huge step for Tony, to be handing the reins away like that.
“Alright, listen up. Until we can close that portal, our priority is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof. Eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back, or you turn it to ash.”
Clint looked over to Tony. “Can you give me a lift?”
I just knew Tony was smirking when he said, “Right. Better clench up Legolas.” They took off.
Steve resumed. “You got to try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You got the lightning. Light the bastards up.”
Thor swung his hammer and took off.
“Evie, I want you to get back to Stark Tower. Chances are, Loki will wind up there. Fight off any aliens you see.”
I gave a grin. “You got it.”
I could still hear him talking to Natasha and tell Hulk to smash through the coms as I took off. Deciding fire and water were useless in this scenario unless I wanted to cause even more damage, I stuck with my icicles of death and vines that came up and strangled the aliens. Soaring over the Chitauri, I killed all that I saw. It scared me that I could kill another living being so easily, but there was too much to be done to focus on that for the time being.
Soon, I landed on the balcony of the tower. I could see Natasha had gained control of a flying chariot, so I sent ice to stop the aliens following her.
But unfortunately, I could see that Loki had quickly caught up to her..
Through the coms, I heard her call out to Clint, who looked very confused. “Nat, what are you doing?”
“Uh, a little help!”
“Clint! See if you can get him over toward the tower!” I said.
“I’ll try…”
He knocked an arrow and let it fly. Loki seemed to catch it before it exploded. It sent him flying onto the balcony I was on. He got up, but the Hulk jumped up and punched him into a wall inside.
I raced after them to hear Loki yell, “Enough! You are, all of you, beneath me! I am a god you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by a…”
He trailed off as Hulk grabbed his legs and started swinging him around, smashing him from side to side.
Huh. That’s one way I can get him still enough to remove the mind control… And I didn’t even need to trick him!
Hulk left Loki on his back before spitting out, “Puny god.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Hulk. You did a fantastic job!”
He looked at me, for a moment I was worried he wouldn’t know I was one of the good guys. But he just nodded.
“Go help save the world,” I said, and he leapt out the same way he came up.
I kneeled by Loki who was whimpering by this time. “Everything is going to be okay, Loki. I’m going to help you.”
Placing my hands on his chest and closing my eyes, I let my magic flow through me and into him. In my mind’s eye, I could see the interior of his mind. Every thought he had was encased in a pulsing electric blue and black goo. I envisioned myself pulling the viscous substance off, and with a physical hand, I placed the removed sickness into a floating ball above Loki.
The battle raged on below me, but I could barely hear it. Sweat coated my face, and my hands shook at the expense of energy. My body was weakening. I pushed myself to keep going; I had to get the sickness fully out of his mind before Loki would be okay again.
Just as I was scraping the edges of his mind for the last remnants of mind control, I thought I could hear someone, or a few someones, shouting my name. I couldn’t afford to lose concentration, though; not with my energy already so weak. I did a final check over Loki, and satisfied that I had removed every bit of the evil, I pulled back.
My eyes opened to a hovering ball of sickly energy about the size of a beach ball. Something flickered from within, so I took a closer look. A giant, purple face was leering at me— seeming to look directly at me through the magic. I knew instinctively that this was the man who had enslaved Loki. With a furious scream, and the last of my energy, I ripped the ball apart; scattering it back to harmless energy.
Head thrown back, eyes closed, I panted. That’s when I heard it again. A worried, “Evie?”
Slowly, I raised my head again and opened my eyes to see my teammates standing on the other side of Loki. I flashed a weak smile, “Oh, hey. When did you guys get here?”
And then, as if knowing I was safe, I slipped into unconsciousness.