Bab 115: New York-2
A/N: Pat-reon: HelloDarkness07
Two Chapters today. This is the SECOND one!
—
Betsy Braddock, Psylocke could honestly say that she had never seen herself doing this in her entire 45 years of life; fighting aliens, that is.
The last time that mutants had encountered aliens in the form of the D'Bari, Betsy was still a mercenary and enforcer working with Caliban. She only learned about the aliens when she joined the X-Men, which was around a decade or so ago.
Ducking under an energy blast, Psylocke rolls forward and slashes her katana through the alien that had attacked her. Her Psionic energy comes to life, and a glowing pink whip emerges from her left hand, which she then uses to grab another alien and pull it towards herself.
Mid-flight, however, the whip of energy suddenly turns sharp and constricts on the Alien's neck, beheading it.
A burst of blue smoke above her makes her look up, and Psylocke sees Kurt Wagner, or Nightcrawler, skewer an alien who had tried to jump on her, with his sharp, pointy tail.
Another alien flies from in front of her, missing her and Kurt with a hair's breadth, while a pink portal appears midair, cutting another alien in two.
As Blink appears out of the portal she had created, Psylocke looks at the approaching blue furred form of Hank McAvoy, with annoyance, and says, "A little warning would have been nice, Beast."
Beast smiles at her abashedly, and says, "I.. keep getting told that. I apologize, Psylocke."
The alien group that had converged on this place was now gone, dead by their hands. Blink and Kurt had made sure that no one fled, while Kitty and Blink together had ensured no human got injured.
Looking around, Psylocke closes her eyes and focusing on her telepathy, she says, "Clear. Where's Shadowcat?"
Kitty Pryde takes that moment to appear out of the ground right in front of her, and as Psylocke barely stops herself from stabbing the girl, Kitty says, "The people are safely underground inside the subway. There are cops with them, and I've given them our communicator if aliens attack them again."
Psylocke nods, thankful for it. They'd been fighting for almost fifteen minutes now, and it didn't look like it was ending anytime soon.
Hank suddenly looks to the side with a frown, right before they all hear a loud series of booms, and says, "Blink, a portal to three streets over, if you please. A large number of aliens have just rained fire on a crowded street and there aren't any of the defenders there."
Blink nods, and without even saying anything opens a portal with a snap of her hands. As soon as they walk through, they're faced with fire, and destruction, the aliens already having left. Psylocke immediately begins using her Telepathy to look for survivors, as Kurt and Blink start waving the injured towards another Subway station.
—
Steve jumps over the upturned bus, and on top of the Bridge that Natasha and Clint had commandeered for themselves, as their stronghold. While Clint used his slowly decreasing arrows with an amazing accuracy, Natasha did the same with her guns.
Steve had taken a short detour to help the frankly overwhelmed Police officers, giving them the orders they desperately needed. He knew how it is: people inexperienced in combat need to be given precise orders, they need to be told what to do. Sometimes, orders are all that people need to get them to fight.
Thankfully, he had seen a group of enhanced people helping them evacuate, no doubt these X-Men that Stark had spoken about. Mason's friends, Stark had said. So they weren't completely helpless after his departure, but still, he would have appreciated at least the Air Force to have come.
He knows just how fast the new Jets can be deployed, and now, around 20 minutes since the attack had begun, they should have at least joined the battle.
And now, he was back to his friends, if he can call them that, using his shield to slam an alien away from Natasha and Clint. They weren't alone however, surprisingly enough.
Along with Clint and Natasha, fighting the aliens were three people, one of them looking vaguely familiar to him. One of them was made completely out of metal, punching and kicking them with a strength somewhere in the middle between himself and the God of Thunder. Thankfully, however, he at least seemed somewhat immune to those energy blasts, which just ricocheted off of him, even if they left a scorch mark on his metal skin.
The second one had a single red spectacle on his eyes, through which he was shooting.. light?.. at the aliens. Some attacks missed, but those that hit caused the aliens to either get thrown back with tremendous force, get holes carved into them, or get burned to a crisp.
Lastly, the familiar man had shiny knives growing out of his fists, three for each hand, which he was using to cut through the aliens with wonderful ease. In the single second that Steve had taken to observe that man, however, he could tell that the man healed almost as fast as Mason did.
'Were they related?' he wondered to himself, before joining the fight.
As the aliens keep approaching them, Steve throws his shield forward. It slams into one alien, and after multiple ricochets, returns back into his own hands.
As the aliens drop down, not yet unconscious or dead, suddenly, bright white beams of Lightning slam into each of them as Thor drops down.
Steve looks at him, a frown marrying his face when he notices that Thor was wounded on his abdomen, and asks, "What's the story upstairs?"
As much as he wants to mention the wound, Steve knows he can't. Seeing a God be injured in a fight is definitely not a boost of morale.
Thor looks just annoyed at the injury, however, as he uses a car to support himself, and looking at all the defenders there, he says, "The Barrier surrounding the cube is impenetrable."
"Thor's right. We gotta deal with these guys first." Stark says in his earpiece.
"How do we do this? Even with the X-Men's help we'll have a hard time dealing with the portal and the aliens at the same time." Natasha asks, as Clint starts gathering his thrown arrows back up.
The man with the knives sticking out of his hands scoffs, and says, "You getting tired, little spy?"
"Now's really not the time, Wolverine. Deal with your heart break later." The metal man says, suddenly not made out of metal anymore.
Steve looks at Natasha, who just shrugs, and says, "Long story, cap."
The spectacled mutant steps forward, and Steve immediately recognises that while the other two were the stronger ones of the team of mutants, this one was the more strategic one. He says, "Look, we've had our differences with SHIELD, but this is bigger than both of us. Unless we want to see the aliens win, we need to work together."
And that explained to Steve why Fury didn't call them in. There were no doubts that Fury knew about the X-Men, since they were apparently a public Superhero team, but no doubt Fury would have been reluctant to ask for help from the same team that he probably tried to spy on.
Steve looks at his own team, and says, "He's right, we do it as a single team. Not two teams working together, but one team."
"I have unfinished business with Loki." Thor interjects, which Steve understands, but this was really not the time.
"Yeah? Get in line." Clint says, and Steve understands that too. But once again, not the time.
"Save it." Steve orders, and knows that it's been accepted. "Loki wants to keep this fight focused on us, and that's what we need. Without him to direct them these things could run wild. We got Stark, Mason," who can apparently fly on top of all his other powers, "and your friend with the lightning up top."
"Call her Storm. I'm Cyclops, and these two are Wolverine and Colossus." The mutant team leader interjects.
Steve nods, all the names making a lot of sense to him based on their gifts, and continues, "They're going to need us to.."
Even before he can finish it, however, he stops, his attention taken by the sound of an approaching motorcycle. As Steve turns back, he notices the man named Wolverine, who still looked very familiar to him, sniffing his nose a few times, and tense in preparation for a fight.
Steve raises his hand, smiles in relief, and says, "He's a friend."
Steve, Thor, Natasha, and Clint, followed from the back by the mutants, all approach the motorcycle, which was being ridden by Dr Bruce Banner.
Banner gets off of the bike, and resting it against a car, he says, "So.. this all seems.. horrible."
"I've seen worse." Natasha says, casually shrugging.
Banner smiles a bit sadly, and says, "Sorry about that."
"No.. we could.. use a little worse." Natasha says, reminding Steve of Stark.
"Stark, we got him." Steve says into the earpiece.
"Banner? Tell him to suit up, I'm bringing the party to you." Stark says, making Steve frown in thought.
'Party? What Party?' he wonders.
Suddenly, a loud roar sounds off in the distance, and Stark appears from behind a building more than a few blocks away from them. And following after him, was the giant fish-like alien, its wings cutting into the sides of the buildings.
Steve didn't even turn back after hearing a snikt like sound from behind him, as he kept watching the giant creature follow after Stark. Who was apparently leading it towards them.
"I don't see how that's a party." Natasha says, but Steve understands.
"Doctor Banner?" He calls out, as Banner starts walking towards the alien. When Banner looks at him, Steve says, "Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."
Banner smiles a sad smile, and says, "That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry."
And then, Banner turns around, already turning big and green. Right as Stark passes Banner and floats above the rest of the Avengers, Banner.. Hulk's out, and slams his fist into the creature's nose.
It was as if an almost unstoppable force met an almost immovable object, but instead of causing a paradox the almost immovable object won.
Hulk got pushed back, more than a dozen yards, but similarly, the fish-like flying alien got stopped in its tracks. Its back bent awkwardly, raised up in the air as Hulk stopped it so suddenly, and the metal armour it was covered by cracked in multiple places, as it began breaking up.
"Hang on." Stark says, and pointing a hand at the raised alien, shoots a small missile at a large wound Steve could see.
The missile explodes, and destroys the part it was connected to, cutting the alien in two. A bright red light slams into the two pieces, destroying the shorter piece, the tail, completely, while the second piece simply gets pushed away from them. Multiple small pieces, however, fall down on them, covering them with no small amounts of purple-blue blood, and liquid flesh.
"SCREEEEEE!!!"
"GRRROWL!"
Multiple growls, screeches, yells, sound from all over Manhattan, the aliens showing their anger at Hulk killing their biggest gun in one single hit, and right now, Steve could feel the chances of their win improving.
Hulk takes a deep breath, and growls out loudly in return, showing his own anger, "ROOOAAARRR!!!!"
Nine people here, right now, the five other mutants clearing the grounds and helping people evacuate, the woman named Storm, and Mason. Instead of just six people that Fury had planned for to defend the world, they had gotten sixteen defenders.
Sixteen Avengers, instead of the measly six.
Yes, the chances of winning are very high now.
So of course, it is natural that Loki takes this moment to call for even more of the Chitauri. Three more of the large fishes, and hundreds more of the chariot riding Chitauri enter through the portal, and spread out over New York, raining destruction on to the city.
Steve could see Mason and the woman named Storm fighting the Aliens up in the sky, at least the smaller ones. The bigger flying.. Leviathans.. seemed to be out of their league. But they would get tired soon, maybe not Mason but the woman would. Probably, he doesn't know much about mutants to be sure about it.
"Call it cap." Stark says, as they form into a circle, so they could watch one another's backs.
Steve gives the flying Mason another look, and says, "Alright, listen up. Until we close that portal our priority is containment. Half of the X-Men are already carrying out rescue efforts, we help them when they need it but otherwise leave them to it. They've got it handled."
Or at least, that's what he had seen in his brief glimpse of them.
"Hawkeye, Cyclops, I want you on that roof. Eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays, and snipe as much as you can. Cyclops, take anyone that approaches your position out with extreme prejudice."
Despite the red glasses he wore, most likely to help with the laser beam Power he has, Steve had noticed that Cyclops had a very good eyesight. Maybe it came from having to look at things clearly to aim properly, but Steve knew that he and Clint were perfect partners for one another.
Turning towards Stark, he says, "Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything goes more than three blocks out of your Tower, you turn it back or you turn it to ash."
Stark nods, and after a short conversation with Hawkeye and Cyclops, takes them along with him as he flies off.
Steve turns towards Thor next, thankful that the thousand year old God had remained to listen to the orders, and says, "Thor, you and Storm try to bottleneck that portal, slow them down. You two got the lightning, light those bastards up."
Wolverine's gruff voice interjects, and says, "Tell her Logan sent you, she'll listen."
Thor nods at the man, and swinging his hammer, flies off into the sky.
Steve looks at the remaining people, and says, "Us, we remain here on the ground. Wolverine and Natasha, I have no idea what history you have, but get over it right now. I need you two to go two blocks in that direction and fight the bastards. Keep them focused on us."
Natasha nods and looks at Wolverine with a raised eyebrow. He just scoffs, and starts running, his nose already sniffing for aliens. Which left Colossus, him, and..
"And Hulk." Hulk snaps his head towards him, making Steve realise that specific orders would not be appreciated for this guy. So, he just says one word. "Smash."
Hulk grins, clearly happy about the order, and jumps up high into the air, swatting the fliers as he goes.
Colossus sighs, and as the aliens drop down around them, he says, "I would not want to fight the Hulk at all."
"You and I both, buddy. You and I both." Steve says, and as one, the two grounded Avengers rush at the aliens that had them surrounded, fists and Shield flying in frenzy.
—
Thor lands on top of a tall building, which was one of the very few ones here covered by metal and not glass. He raises his Hammer up into the air, and calls up a Lightning storm. Dark clouds gather above him, as the metallic tower works as a Lightning rod, pulling more and more lightning towards him.
This has an unintended side effect of bringing the attention of the woman named Storm towards him, and as she approaches him, Thor yells, "We have to prevent more of those creatures from invading! If you can, join me in smiting them, Lady Storm." Almost as an afterthought, he adds, "Logan sent me."
Storm just raises an eyebrow, and as dark clouds gathers above on Thor's command, she spreads out her hands, joining in his task of gathering lightning.
"I will join your efforts, Prince Thor." Storm says, and as her eyes turn completely white, she sends out her own Magic into the air, joining his divine Magic in conjuring Lightning straight from Nature itself.
And then, Thor points his Hammer at the Portal, sending all the collected burst of Lightning straight towards it in the form of a thick, bright, beam of Lightning.
"So much Power.. I've never felt anything like this before!" Storm exclaims, as the combined might of an Avatar of Gaea, and the God of Thunder fly towards the portal.
It completely destroys the first giant Leviathan that it encounters, along with the tiny creatures that had found themselves in the way, while the following two Leviathans find themselves pushed back, injured from the Lightning.
As the first attack dies down, Thor looks at Storm, who was staring at him in awe, Thor says in a warning tone, "I advise you not to get used to it, Lady Storm. I am a God, and you will not be able to handle too much of my full power."
But when he gathers his Lightning for a second attack, Storm is right there with him, her own Lightning joining him in killing the invading aliens in droves.
—
Snarling in anger, I dropped down on top of a Leviathan, joining Thor and Hulk in their battle. Swiping Glamdring, I cut through a Chitauri running towards me, and kick at another, sending him flying right at Thor, who slams his hammer at him, crushing his head.
Flipping back, I dodge an energy blast, and run towards the attacker. I dodge another blast and cut into the alien's neck, beheading him in two.
Noticing that I'm on the Leviathan's head, and that the Leviathan was speeding towards a building, I yell, "THOR!" and with as much force as I can muster, slam the sword into the metallic armour covering the head of the space whale.
Thor looks at me, and immediately seeing my plan, jumps up. His Hammer charges up with his lightning which he then slams into my sword, discharging it all through Glamdring.
The Leviathan drops down, a God's lightning coursing through its body, and crashes into the street. It still crashes into the building, only instead of the top, it crashes into the large ground floor, and goes through.
Dropping down before it even touches the building, I point my hand towards the dropping alien and pull with my Magic. My sword cuts through the side of the alien's head, and rushes towards me, stopping in my hand.
I look at the Leviathan crashing into the ground and wince when Hulk punches Thor away from him. Thor shrugs off the wound, thankfully enough, and flies off to continue with the fight.
Bending my knees, I leap into the air once again, and continue attacking the flying aliens. It was all I'd been doing since the battle began, keeping the skies clear. Or mostly clean, there was only so much I could do while holding myself back.
The X-Men had the rescue handled, their unique gifts allowing them to carry on with their task with amazing efficiency. Steve had taken command almost immediately, and thankfully, the X-Men didn't seem to have any doubts regarding his leading capacity.
I guess Essex's death and later Jean's disappearance allowed Scott to mature properly, unlike what was in fate for him.
But despite the dozen and a half defenders fighting the aliens, New York wasn't unaffected. Already the death toll had reached 500, and more than that were injured, which could lead to more deaths. Gods, I just wonder what it would have been like if I hadn't brought in the X-Men.
I haven't used the Time Stone in a long time, except for looking to see if Selene had revealed herself to me in the future. And the visions I saw in the past were very.. inaccurate, thanks to how far apart the two events were.
Thankfully, the US National Guard was just now coming in with their tanks, joining the cops and the Avengers in fighting the aliens.
Gods, Selene would have loved being here, loved being allowed to let loose even if only a little.
Seeing something terrible about to happen, I drop down on the ground right in front of the half of the X-Men that were focused on rescuing people and kick the alien away from the mutant holding it tightly. Right as a pink coloured psionic blade speeds towards my neck, I duck down and slam my palm into her stomach, sending the mutant flying back just a little.
The other mutants surround me, Hank between the woman and I, Kitty Pryde behind me, and Kurt and Blink to each side.
She stares at me, startled at not just my sudden appearance, but also by me attacking her, and asks, "What the hell? Aren't you on our side?!"
I look at the alien I had kicked out of her hands, and says, "I just stopped you from making the worst, and possibly last mistake you could have committed in your life, Psylocke. A little appreciation would be nice."
Beast, who had gotten in a fighting stance at my appearance, stops the others from attacking me, and asks, "What do you mean?"
I wave my hand towards the chitauri, and say, "These creatures run on a hive mind. Your telepathy no doubt caught it, am I right? And you thought, why not stop them from the source, hack into their signal? Didn't you?"
Psylocke stares at me, and slowly nods.
Snorting, I say, "That's just an illusion, Psylocke. The Hive mind isn't just allowing them to work together, it's allowing them to take orders from someone not here. Allowing that someone to watch us as we fight them. If you had succeeded in hacking into their connection, you would have given them access to your own body. Trust me, you do not have a strong enough mind to fight that person."
"And I suppose you do?" Psylocke asks bitingly, not willing to admit her mistake.
It would really have been really fucking bad if I hadn't seen it happen. The Chitauri have a hive mind, and someone has the Master Control over it, so to speak. Someone who is on the Mothership in space, right now.
Looking at her with a sigh, I say, "Yes. Yes I do. As a matter of fact, Psylocke, you may ask Charles just how good my telepathy is the next time you see him. But until then, stay out of their minds unless you want an Alien to have control over your body."
Not waiting for her to say anything, I fly up once again, hoping that she takes my words to heart. I do not want The Other, or God forbid Thanos, to have access to anyone's mind on Earth. Catastrophic, no better word to describe it.
—
Nicholas Fury stared at the monitor, which showed the newly re-established News channels. It showed them exactly what was going on, even if the scenes weren't complete.
"New York City is under attack by what seems to be an Alien Force…"
"...Iron Man has been seen fighting the invaders along with some known, and some unknown defenders…"
"...Hulk, and two people dressed as Captain America and Captain Avalon…"
"Are these Mutants? Where is the Military?"
The destruction that the aliens were causing was clearly visible to him, even if in multiple instances. One news channel showed one side of the city, while another showed a different. But Fury just had a grim face, staring at Captain America fighting on the ground, while Captain Avalon flew around the city, his sword cutting swathes through the flying aliens.
'Motherfucker didn't even mention that he could fly.' Fury thought to himself, wondering just what else was the man hiding.
"Sir." His second in command, Maria Hill, says, as she approaches his station. "The council is on." She looks sorry as she says it, no doubt knowing how annoyed Fury was right now with the Council.
Putting the monitors to sleep, he says, "Try and establish communication with Xavier. I need to know how he even learned about the attack. And find out just where the hell our National Guard is."
As Hill nods and walks away, Fury swipes on his screen, pulling up the secure server that had been ready for the meeting with the World Security Council, beginning his next few minutes of endless annoyance and anger.
He had listened to them ask about the state of the battle, uselessly since he barely knew anything at all, and then about the helpers.
Avengers, they knew, yet they refused to use that title. Refused to accept the Avengers as one of their own.
And then there was this.
"They're mutants, Director Fury. What's to say that after this Battle is won that they won't turn their backs on us. They clearly outnumber our troops there." One old man says, making Fury just scowl in instinct.
Turning towards that screen, Fury says, "They're our men now, councilman?" Snorting when the councilman doesn't say anything, Fury asks, "You seriously want to brand them as enemies? The same people who have been working tirelessly since the beginning of this battle to save as many civilians as they can? Admit it, Councilman, without the X-Men, without these mutants, this battle would have been ten times worse."
"But it hasn't ended yet. We have no idea if it will ever end, Director Fury. The Council has made a decision." A female Council member says, bringing his attention, and his ire, over to herself.
Using as much of his remaining patience as he could, Fury snaps at her, "I recognise the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid ass decision I've elected to ignore it."
"Director, you're closer than any of our subs. You scramble that jet.." the Council head begins, only to be interrupted by Fury's furious voice.
Fury snarls, "That.. is the island of Manhattan, Councilman, with a population of 1.5 million. Until I'm certain my team can't hold it, I will not order a nuclear strike on the civilian population. I will not be committing a genocide against our own people while being unsure if it will even work."
"If we don't stop them now, we lose everything." The councilman argues.
Fury looks at him, and says, "I send that bird out, and we already have."
Not wanting to listen to them drone on anymore, Fury swipes down on his screen, shutting the council meeting off.
He could already feel his tiredness creeping in, making him wonder how those on the field were feeling right now.
—
A/N: So, yeah. One more chapter for the battle.
Sorry about being late to upload, I've been having a rough week. My health has taken a downturn, and I've only just begun to feel better. Not good, but better than the last three days.
And it isn't just one thing either. Cold, coughs, allergies, headaches, and as of the last few days, ear ache. One by one I'm collecting illnesses like Infinity Stones lol. So, since I didn't write and upload Ch 121 on Pat-reon until half an hour ago, the uploads here had been put on hold.
Sorry!
Anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.
Thank you for your support! Tata!
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone