Chapter 186: Invasion

Chapter 186: Invasion

9th March 2012, New York City

(Tony Stark POV)

Tony Stark wasn’t having a good day. The past few days have been horrible, really. It started when SHIELD screwed up playing with something that they didn’t understand, and it culminated to fighting a Norse god for some magic cube who had just summoned an alien army of all things through a portal, alongside what has to be the most dysfunctional team of heroes that ever existed.

He, fought besides one of his father’s personal heroes, Steve Rogers, not that the man seemed to know how to do anything other than following orders. He was fighting alongside an assassin of all things, another Norse god, an archer, and the Hulk.

Tony had to admit that Banner’s situation made him feel bad. They worked very well together, and the man was as brilliant as Tony imagined it. The idea of losing his mind, like Banner did, terrified Tony. Because who was Tony Stark without him brilliant mind? The man was a very nice guy, who seemed traumatized after being chased around for so much.

The inventor was under no illusion when Fury told Banner that he only needed him for his expertise in Gamma Radiation, not the Hulk. Tony could have tracked the cube by himself, even if it would have taken him a little longer to do so. Fury obviously wanted the Hulk in this little team, not that it worked, Loki’s escape had ended up with the Hulk falling from the helicarrier, and Tony didn’t have the time to search for him, you know, with the invasion coming.

And now, here he was, a billionaire who was in over his head, fighting an alien army of all things, summoned by the Norse god of mischief and lies. That was a sentence that never in a million years he would have thought would be true.

The billionaire flew in his armor, blasting alien after alien in the streets of New York. He had been hit a few times, and his armor had held up quite well considering the energy weapons that his enemies were using.

He looked up and found something huge emerging from the portal. It looked like some unholy combination of a snake and a dragon who was as big as a building. For the first time in a long time, Tony Stark felt true fear. Was this what was out there? Giant monsters and gods, who fought and considered humans like him like ants.

Tony really wished that Banner would be here. For now, his backup was a man with a bow and an assassin, a super soldier who haven’t even acclimated to what the world has become in his absence. For now, the only people doing actual damage was himself and Thor, himself because he was pretty much wearing a weapon of mass destruction, and Thor, well, because he was a god who controlled lightning.

The only positive in this invasion was the fact that the portal was relatively small, and hence represented a bottleneck in the invasion. Tony didn’t want to try to imagine what it would have been like if the alien army had physically travelled the Earth and attacked. They wouldn’t have stood a chance.

For now, Tony hoped that Banner would somehow come and helped them out a bit, because even with the tactical disadvantage, they were losing badly, and people were dying.

He spoke up to ask Jarvis, “Any sign of Banner, yet?”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Don’t worry, buddy, just keep an eye out for him.”

For now, he needed to distract that giant worm thing from flattening buildings and killing people. Sighing, and in what he knew was an idiotic move, he released some missiles, hitting the thing in the face and in the belly. The Leviathan, yeah he was calling it a Leviathan now, roared in anger and started to chase Tony through to city.

Yeah, this was probably a stupid move, but he thought of ways to use him to take out other aliens somehow. It was already a minute since the damn thing was chasing him, and he was hit a couple more times while he was distracted.

Trying to think of a solution to this little problem, he was surprised to see a shadow thing that flew past him, materialized into a hooded woman in black who created some sort of black sword thing out of thin air and sent in directly at the maw of the creature, killing it. While the thing was falling down, she created a few other black swords and sent them at the aliens who were pursuing him and jumped down. For some reason, the Leviathan didn’t fall into the ground crashing into buildings and people, it simply started to disintegrate into dust, saving probably a dozen of people from the impact.

The woman in the hood landed on the ground and looked directly at him. Tony knew immediately that he was being summoned and slowly landed next to her, “So, I don’t if you know me…”

“I know exactly who you are, Antony Stark,” the voice rasped back. Tony would always deny it, but this woman scared the hell out of him.

“Yeah, I know, I’m a bit of a public figure. And while we’re at it, who might you be?”

She turned away, ignoring the question, “They have a hive mind to coordinate themselves. They’re no better than machines. Destroy the control station, you kill them all.”

Stark was startled at this, “Are you serious?”

She nodded, “Unfortunately, the control ship is on the other side of the portal. We’ll need to target it somehow. It’s either that or close the portal, the signal should stop, either knocking them out, or killing them. They don’t have identities outside the hive mind. They were cloned and engineered for the soul purpose of war. But if we just close the portal, we risk them coming the long way round, and the damage will be immense, even if buys us some time.”

Stark nodded, “Destroy the ship or close the portal and worry about them coming later.”

The woman nodded back, “Yes, Banner is on his way. He should help you stabilize the situation here, while you think of a solution. It’s your choice.”

The woman disappeared into a bunch of crows flying about, leaving Tony with the terrifying choice ahead of him. She left the fate of the entire human race in his hand and he had no idea why. The first thing he did, was open his comms to his teammates, “Guys, we got a friendly here, a woman in a black hood. Very strong, capable to creating weird sword things and sending them flying at things, disintegrating them somehow. She killed the giant worm thing, she can turn into birds, and shadows, I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Barton was the first to answer, “Seriously, I’m not complaining about the help or anything, but did you describe some woman grim reaper or something?”

“Very funny, Barton, but I’m serious here. She gave me some important information. We need to meet up and coordinate properly.”

Rogers answered back, “Come to my position for now. Things seems to have calmed down for now.”

The billionaire flew around killing any alien in his way. They met up exactly on Cap’s position. The soldier frowned at them, and asked, “What’s the news, Stark?”

“They work on a hive mind. It’s why they’re so well coordinated even with the bottleneck, destroy the ships on the other side, they all die. Close the portal and they’d all die too since the signal wouldn’t reach them, but the rest of the army would probably physically travel to us, and that would be a fight we wouldn’t win.”

Rogers nodded, “Any news contacting any mutants or the fantastic four?”

Tony shook his head, “No, Reed’s little family are on a trip off world, some weird dimension thing. The mutants in SHIELD’s employ are too far away to make a difference, and the ones in New York are keeping their head down. You know, because they’d be hunted down after that.”

“So, we’re on our own, then.”

Tony was nodding, but was interrupted by a familiar yet terrifying voice, “No, you’re not. You have me.”

Everyone jumped back and pointed their weapons at the woman who didn’t seem to care, but looked directly towards Thor, “Odinson, tell your father that we will have words after this fiasco is over. We had an agreement, that no one from the nine realms go the Midgard without my permission. He disregarded this agreement with your little spat with your brother in New Mexico, and again now. We will speak about reparations later.”

The alien god looked outraged, “Who are you to demand something of the all father, ruler of the nine realms?”

“Morrigan, I am the Morrigan.”

The blond god immediately paled in fear and started stuttering, “I’m sorry, my lady. I have heard but of legends of your prowess. I will speak to my father as soon as I can.”

“So be it, Odinson.”

What the hell, this was Thor, the guy who called human, unevolved, tiny, weak creatures. Justifiably, the man was very strong, and his civilization was at least thousands of years ahead of humans, although that progress seemed to not include Asgardian mental health, considering how much of a nutcase Loki was.

But still, that man was terrified of the woman in front of him, and he had no idea why. Was her name that important. He asked Jarvis to make a search for the name ‘Morrigan’ and the results shocked him. This was a Celtic goddess of Death, one who in Legend massacred thousands if not millions of people, and considering Thor’s reaction, it was probably true. Did other Celtic gods exist as well? Although, it was a bit demeaning for her to proclaim Earth as her domain, but she did seem that she stopped any alien intervention to Earth for the last few thousand years and she didn’t demand anyone to worship her or pay her anything. As far as he was concerned, this didn’t change much. Well, no, it changed a lot, but it would make less waves than Thor’s arrival a few years ago.

Rogers seemed to have stopped his surprise, “Well, Morrigan, what’s the plan?”

“I will deal with the Leviathans; Thor will use his lightning to stop more from going through the portal. The rest is up to you.”

The soldier nodded and looked at Stark, “You’re the smart one, try to figure out a way to destroy their ships or something. Romanoff, get to the portal generator and try to figure out how to close it. Barton, get to one of the rooftops and cover anyone who’s being targeted the best you could. I’ll stay here, and try to protect the civilians from the aliens who already landed.”

Tony chimed him, “What about the Hulk? Banner should be on his way, soon.”

The captain looked startled, “That’s some good news, right there. I’ll speak with him, but we can’t rely on him to do anything other than fighting. I’ll probably have him jump around and kill the stragglers.

They all nodded, ready for the fight of their lives. Before they could each go to their destinations, a wave of Chitauri came racing at them, firing everywhere. That was until, every single one of them was hit with flying black spikes, killing them instantly.

Everyone around looked at the terrifying woman and paled slightly. The Morrigan nodded at them and melted into the shadows. Barton coughed, “I’m not the only one who just saw that, right?”

Rogers shook his head, “We don’t have time for this. Everyone knows their mission, let’s move out.”

Tony decided to lend Barton a hand and fly him to the roof of one of the buildings, and then flew away, killing every alien he could find in the air. His main mission was finding a way to destroy an alien mothership that’s on the other side of a portal, in the vacuum of space.

Yeah, no pressure.