216 Scale of Universe

Strucker stood silently as the snow and ice faded to nothing, to be replaced with a field of stars. We stood on an asteroid that had been smoothed out to become a platform floating in space, looking down upon the Earth. Behind us stood a temple, but we didn't face it.

The Earth is a beautiful thing. Call me a romantic. Call me biased. But it really is. Clouds swirling over sapphire gems, with hints of emerald and chocolate.

"...All I wanted was to protect her," Strucker said. "The Earth is so… small. Hanging in all this darkness."

I changed from my Ethereal form to my human one. For this part… my humanity was my strongest advantage. Outside, in the real world, Strucker and I were ripping the mountain we stood on apart. But within my mind, we stood in peace.

"Mutant," Strucker said thoughtfully. "That word. The context of it. I'd forgotten them. I had some idea that we'd encountered those beings. The threat they pose. And you know-"

"I know a lot, Strucker," I cut him off. "Thing is… I agree. Earth. The people on it. They need protecting. But the cost isn't worth it. Not the costs you're willing to pay. Because mutants aren't the threat to worry about. They aren't the worst the universe has to offer. Not by any means."

Strucker and I looked up at each other, meeting eyes.

"...Show me."

This was the most delicate stage of my plan. Emma had forced me to speed it up. But in some ways, she'd helped me. I'd have to thank her… personally, later.

"You want to know about what we're really facing as a species? How small mutants, inhumans, supersoldiers… aliens, and gods are?"

I held out a hand. "You've got the Mind Stone. A repository of all the universe's knowledge. Why don't you and I take a look?"

He scoffed. "You think I'm a fool. To give you access to the power of the stone?"

"I think you're a scientist," Natasha had told me once there was a cadence you could add to your voice. A way to draw people in. To convince them that something was as much their suggestion as yours. "A discoverer of the unknown. More than Hydra's leader, you were always at the forefront of their research. And now, all you need is someone with the right questions… and you could learn more than you ever dreamed of. The Mind Stone must be telling you that."

His eyes were glowing golden as he stared at my hand. "So much… More than just mutants."

That taste of previously unknown knowledge Strucker had accessed. The confusion he'd been hit by through this whole fight, the way he'd been struck by unknown after unknown. To a scientist like him, that taste was a hit of narcotics to the brain. I could see him thinking it over as the Mind Stone whispered to him. So much knowledge. Power. All with just a little push.

"All you need is for me to ask… you wondered how I knew so much. Don't you want to find out just what else I've been hiding?"

He swallowed reflexively. With a single movement, he reached out to my hand and took it. Symbolically, sharing his access.

I touched against the Mind Stone as Strucker touched my powers. And then I asked the questions.

Show me the Brood.

Suddenly they came. We stood in a city on an unknown planet. A species of blue glowing humanoids were screaming, running.

A horrific sound echoed. Not just in the air, but on the psychic plane. A slithering sound that scratched on the nerves.

'Hssssssss!'

Insects chased after the innocents running through the streets in impossible waves, more of a flood than a horde. Teeth ripped through flesh. Stingers injected poison that either paralyzed or poisoned the victims. Sunlight shone off of carapaces before blue glowing blood marred the shining surface. Eyes of red glowed. The horde was unending. Flying, running, chasing their prey. I'd once seen an army of ants ripping apart a dead dog. This was worse. Insects tearing through buildings. The corpse wasn't a small animal. It was the planet itself.

The hive felt us. Their minds pressed against us. Inhuman presences asking what we were. Prey? Enemy? We were different. So of course we must be either. They had no concept of anything else.

And then, there were the bodies that they left alone. The blue glowing people who had been left to wander, shell-shocked. Then, their hands formed into hardened brown talons. They knew what was happening. We could feel the panic that set in. Their faces elongated, turning to fanged muzzles. Screams of agony and fear echoed in the air.

Strucker watched with cold analysis. But that was fine. We were just getting started. I entreated the Mind Stone.

Show me the Black Queen.

We suddenly stood in a room again. A dungeon of an ancient castle. Two people were there. A young man. He looked like a college kid, dressed in clubwear. Ready to party and get girls.

I clenched a fist when I saw what was happening to him. His skin was becoming wrinkled. Youth was fading in mere seconds, the passage of time on fast forward as flowing trails of smoke-like energy left his body. And entered her.

She was in many ways Emma Frost's opposite and her reflection. Black leather and hair, but the same incredible beauty with enough difference to tantalize. She was smiling with euphoria, head laid back as the one young man groaned in agony. He turned into ash in her arms. She laughed.

Then Selene Gallio looked at us. Her mind pressed against us. The Black Queen of the Hellfire Club smiled. Her power echoed to us. The Mind Stone and my Ethereal powers barely held her off. If Strucker and I hadn't been prepared, she might have done something. Instead she laughed again, a sensual and deep sound that made the chest tighten, filling me with the thrilled excitement that only comes from the most beautiful predators.

I wanted to kill her. For the poor kid now turned to ash. From Strucker, I could feel something else.

Whatever else Selene was, she hadpower.It echoed from her. Like the waves under an ocean. As close to a goddess as could be without being directly related to Ares or Thor.

I focused again, focusing on the task at hand. The psychic vampire spoke as she watched us depart.

"Leaving so soon? Well, come back later. I'm sure I can arrange a wonderful dinner for your next visit… Dial."

The Hellfire Club's two top women knew my name. A problem for later.

We left for our next visit.

Chthon

In the next place, we entered a dark space, standing in nothingness. Strucker looked over at me and smirked.

"So far, Dial… you have yet to impress me."

"Is that so?" I asked calmly.

"An alien species of parasites? A particularly powerful superhuman woman? Dangerous, yes. But neither is anything out of my plans. I'm beginning to wonder if you've run out of tricks."

I thought about that. "Tricks… You don't feel it, do you?"

"Feel what?"

Instead of answering, I waited.

"..." Strucker gasped. I could see it in the reflection of his eyes. A shadow passing behind me. He stepped back, gazing behind me. "Wha-what-"

I didn't look behind me. I just watched that reflection. I got a sense of… limbs stretching out around us, tasting us in the air. I felt the hot breath from jaws pass across my skin. A moist feeling crawled into my lungs, drawing bile into me.

The place we were in didn't have a center. But there was an hourglass. Even as I kept still, and Strucker screamed, the hourglass stood. Within, paper fell down one after another as nails tapped against my ears. The writing on the paper writhed and faded. I felt heat in my blood when the demonic script appeared. I felt horror when it became English. The pages seemed to freeze in time. Inviting themselves to be read if only I had the courage. The Mind Stone pressed against us, importing us to look upon the text, to learn so muc-

The darkness shifted. It had no eyes, no it had dozens, it was looking, it tasted, invaded,bit-

Chthon was beginning to feel us.

A Marvel creation equivalent to Cthulhu and similar Lovecraftian monsters. God. That sentence just didn't compare to the reality of it. I could say it was a beast that had made monsters, that it made so many evils. But here, in its home, where it was everything around us, where even the sound ofpassing by my chestscreamed at me with an oozing sickness like rotted flesh somehow pressing against the pupils and slowly digging in-

I ran. I pulled us out as quickly as I could before we could blackout under the waves as the moist air clawing up my nostrils and down my throat began to stroke along within me. And a book closed over the horrid place with a gentle flutter of pages with impossible to read words that begged to be understood. On that book was a title.

Darkhold.

I pushed the next location into the Mind Stone.

Strucker's future.

Strucker landed in a pile of volcanic ash. He clawed at his throat, gasping as hot air entered. I felt the same relief he did. This air, burning and painful, was like clean water after the horridmoistnessof the realm beyond.

"W-What-" he stared at me. Blood came from his mouth. His nails had scratched trails against his skull. "I-I don't-"

"You wanted me to impress you," I croaked, my own horror almost choking me. "Then let me. After all, I'm a man of wealth and taste."

I wish I could have laughed at the irony of the last line. But I dismissed it to look around. "For now, I wanted to show you something special. I wanted to show you tomorrow. At least… the tomorrow you have to look forward to."

Strucker looked around. His monocle had faded away, allowing me to see the look in his eyes. "This… isn't real."

"It is," I looked upon the lands before me. "When I was young, my mother and father would warn me of this place. They told me I had to be good or I would end up here… hehehe," my chuckle was quiet. A bit manic.

Lord save me. When I made this plan I had some idea- No. I didn't know. I didn't know it would be this.

Fire blazed in the realm. We could feel it. Not just physical heat, but a burn that pressed against our minds. I knew Strucker could feel it. That if we touched the lava running through the rocky landscape, if a lick of fire touched our skin, if god forbid we were engulfed, it wouldn't matter what we did.

We wouldn't die. But when we appeared in the real world, the scars on our souls would never leave. Eternally burned and scorched by the power of our sins.

The fire terrified me. Strucker? Well… he had more sins on his soul than could be counted. His mouth opened as he stammered.

"T-This place isn't-"

The sight of a confident and powerful man letting out stammering denials made me snap. I grabbed him by his jacket and lifted him up. "Isn't what!? Real? You can feel it Strucker! This place doesn't give a shit what youbelievein! This isn't about religion or righteousness, it's about one thing! The innocent and the guilty!"

I twisted him bodily around and pointed him outwards. "Look! Look at them burn!"

At the core of the fire. Soaking through the lava. They screamed. What could have been mistaken for the crackle of flames was seared throats and lungs croaking in eternal pain. Brimstone was mixed with burnt pork sizzling on eternal skillets of stone. There weren't laughing demons cackling as they tortured souls. There didn't need to be, not on this level.

Strucker's eyes reflected red-orange as his eyes met his predecessors.

Then we noticed him.

He was on a platform to our right. He should have been unnoticeable. Just a man in a red suit sitting on a throne of stone.

But the realm bowed to him. Those screaming faced him periodically. He would never grant them mercy. They had to know that. Their suffering, eternal and unending, was his pleasure. He lazily kicked his foot as he watched them soak, a small smile like that of a young child looking upon a field of flowers.

That was his great cruelty. He would never grant them mercy. And yet, he sat there. Because in this place, any hope, no matter how thin, was an addiction as painful as glass. They saw him, and they hoped. Only for him to shatter that hope again. Over and over, cruel indifference followed by fire. They couldn't help but try. And he loved it.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Not a threat. A warning. Because it would make the torment easier.

Mephisto flickered his eyes towards Strucker and me. I froze. But he didn't look at me. He focused on Strucker.

His smile stretched into a horrific face-splittingthingthat made me reel back. He waved a hand.

And the fires around us separated. Visages grew from the stone, the lava, the pits. Figures barely burnt, but suffering in agony as they screamed.

This was just one version of their torment. Stuck in hellfire on this plane. Repeating loops of horrific torture in another. Trapped with the images of those they'd hurt in yet another plane.

I recognized them. Not their faces, not when they'd become blackened husks. I saw Chitauri armor scorched and turned to slag. Massive green flesh sloughing off to become more crisp ash. A patch that had somehow survived the lava, displaying the image of a head with tentacles growing from it.

"no..." Strucker whimpered. Hydra soldiers screamed.

I don't think he noticed the others. The ones with a symbol I recognized. BRIDGE soldiers. American, Russian, Chinese, men, and women who had died on my side.

Intellectually I knew that no army was one hundred percent clean of sinners. But it was sobering to see them burning alongside the Hydra soldiers. Much, much less of them. But a few.

Mephisto held a hand up, fingers lazily waving in a wave. He mouthed something to us.

"Be seeing you."

I pulled us out.

One last place. One last visit.

The Devourer.

Strucker and I landed in a field of grass next to a river. He fell to his knees, staring at nothing. I circled him, looking at him. "Mephisto isn't something Hydra fights. He's the final home for you."

He looked up at me. "I didn't know. I didn-"

"Quick lesson in life… no one gives a shit about your justifications for those atrocities. In the end? Cool motive, still murder," I let out a breath tinged with that horrific moist flavor and a bit of ash. I breathed deeper. "And honestly, even if there weren't some cosmic scale to worry about, the shit you did in Hydra was still a waste of goddamned time. All the crap you did, that great empire you would have made, would have broken the second the right threat came along."

"...The same could be said of the Avengers," Strucker pointed out.

"That's the point you wanna make? We both might lose? Because we might, but at least we won't go down justifying random bullshit," I sighed. "Strucker. You don't understand, even now, how out of your league you were. The stuff I've been preparing the Avengers for. Preparing the world for. So I brought you to the worst place I could think of."

Strucker blinked. Then he looked around.

It was an alien world. The grass was a shade like water under glass. The wind blew through trees covered in fruit shaped like fuzzy mouths. There were two suns in the sky.

But it looked like paradise.

Strucker rose to his feet. He looked terrified. "What is this place?"

"Agrapon-B. A lush planet full of life. It's got animals, plants, all that good stuff. One day it could become a civilization…"

I braced myself. He sensed it.

Above, a silver streak crossed the sky. Strucker glanced at it. The blur was gone before he could get a perfect look, but he must have caught something. He frowned.

"A… surfboard?"

A shadow came over us. It crossed the land in moments, covering us both. Strucker and I looked up.

It was impossible. Insanity. Across the sky, stretching from horizon to horizon, blocking out the suns across the continent. Clouds were blown away by it's passing, trees becoming blown about by hurricane-force winds.

A hand. Fingers that-... How do you even explain the size of something like that hand? How do you explain the size of a continent? Creases the size of rivers, fingers that hung like asteroids slowly falling towards us. I fell to my knees. The river behind me began to rise as the mere approach of the hand's mass began to pull everything towards it.

The hand dominated our attention for a moment before the wrist appeared. Like the glove, it was encased in violet armor that emitted a light that danced across the spectrum of human vision. Along with arms with biceps the size of moons, connecting to a chest larger than the planet we stood on. And to a face that gazed upon the planet we stood on. The upper half of his face was covered by a mask, with eyes glowing with white-silver energy burned. A head covering purple helmet, rising like a Babylonian crown of old. With two sharp-angled flat horns rising from the temples to almost meet the helmet at the top. Only the burning eyes and uncaring, frowning mouth of its wearer were left visible.

But that wasn't his real appearance. The Mind Stone, my Ethereal powers. They couldn't comprehend him. The greatest repository of knowledge in the universe. Powers that could bend reality and read the thoughts of all living things. Useless.

He read us. His mind passed over ours. I could feel him read me at a fundamental level. A mind larger than the form before us. I felt myself breaking under the strain of his existence, both physical and mental. I tried to hide my thoughts, my meager barriers nearly shattering just at his gaze. If he learned what I knew, learned the location of Earth, everything would be over.

I'd made a mistake, coming here. I thought only to break Strucker, but in my hubris, I thought the best way was to astral project to the real beings. To show him the truth in action, rather than a false image from half-remembered dreams. And now, we would-

He dismissed us. I felt tears fall down my cheeks as he turned his attention away. To the planet he was enveloping with his hands.

Of course. Of course.

Galactus wasn't a villain. He was a trial. A literal force of nature. We couldn't fight him. Only endure him. If he'd wanted to kill us, then Strucker and I would be dead. Our bodies, eons away on planet Earth, would have turned to mere ash as our astral projections were destroyed.

Instead… he hungered.

That deep and impossible hunger. It soaked into the atmosphere around us. I felt it pull at us, looking upon our life force.

But when you're hungry, you don't eat a pair of ants. Not when a buffet table is laid out before you.

The hands approached. The winds became a hurricane, sending trees flying, turning the water into a storm. The sound was insane. The ground shook. I felt immense cold, then heat. I grabbed Strucker and pulled. We had to get a different perspective. If we stayed there, we were dead.

The Herald.

In a flash, we were in space. Strucker and I floated in space. We must have been thousands upon thousands of miles away from the planet we had been on. I let out a mental gasp. The weight was gone. No, just lessened. I could still feel it, but compared to before…

The planet sat in the distance. And floating before it, he stood. I could barely comprehend his size. A planet the size of Earth, maybe larger, and it was only as large around as his stomach.

Galactus dug his hands into the surface of the planet. I could feel the life force of the planet screaming in agony. See the crust shatter like the surface of an orange, releasing the juices within. Galactus' face didn't move. But I could feel the ecstasy in him as he fed.

It was the worst feeling in my life. When I'd watched Star Wars as a kid, I remembered the scene of Obi-Wan Kenobi's horror as he felt Alderann die. For the first I really, once and for all, understood how he felt. The planet's place in the galaxy, a spiritual and literal weight, sucked into Galactus like water down a drain. Water turned to steam. Magma spat upwards around his fingers. The lush life of the planet, every animal and plant, dying in moments.

The planet exploded. For the first time in my life, I saw a world die. I prayed softly, watching as the remains of it faded into Galactus.

Galactus' hunger was barely sated. That was the worst part. That the atrocity I'd seen was nothing to him. Barely any sustenance.

"Monster," Strucker whispered next to me. His skin was beginning to crack. Shining golden light flickered through those little fissures in his body.

I shook my head. "No… that's the thing. He's not evil. He's not cruel. One day, he will come to Earth. He'll try to devour us. And unless we fight back, well… he'll have no more care for us than a bulldozer paving over an anthill."

It might have been easier if he was evil.

Someone floated past us. I looked over at him.

The man stood on a surfboard in the depths of space. His skin was beautiful silver from head to toe, his body built like Steve's. He spared a glance our way. Then he turned and leaned over. At the speed of light, he flew off, before easily shattering that limit.

Galactus' minds passed over us for one moment longer. I pulled us out.

In the real world, Strucker fell to his knees. I floated before him. My bottom right arm had been ripped off at some point. He'd ripped a chunk out of my thigh as well. I could barely feel them. I think he'd also broken my spine at some point.

But Strucker? He was far worse off.

The Mind Stone still rested in his hand. The gauntlet he'd been using had shattered, leaving the stone embedded in his hand. Fading grey skin surrounded it, glowing with the energy of the gem as it tore apart his mortal flesh. He was panting out, steam leaving his lips. His clothes had begun ripping at some point, allowing me to see the striations of golden energy burning his skin like electric wires slowly cooking him alive.

"...I was a god," Strucker whimpered. "I had the power to do anything."

"No. You just had power. More than most. Less than many. Nothing special," I said.

"I-I can still save this," his eyes dripped blood. "Hydra will survive."

"Hydra is dead," I said. "Maybe some idiot will take up the name again down the road. But this? You? It's done. You know that."

He gasped in pain as he tried to straighten, only to gasp again. "...So is this it? You kill me?"

"Me? Nah. I promised I'd let someone else have the honor."

"Someone else?" Strucker laughed, coughing up more red and green liquid. "Who is worthy? Of killing me? I was a god!"

Somehow, he rose to his feet, clutching at the Mind Stone. His broken mind continued to shatter in front of me. "A GOD DAMN YOU! I was going to bring this world to a utopia! The unlimited truth of the universe, the code toreality!All that horror! I-I could have stopped it! Hydra could have… could have-"

He stumbled over his words. I think, on some level, despite his insanity, he didn't even believe himself.

"...I was a god."

A loud gunshot. Strucker stared at me. The hole in the center of his head leaked, the back of his skull blown out. Three more shots. Two struck him in the heart. The last in the wrist, sending the Mind Stone bouncing across the ground.

Fury walked up beside me, watching as Strucker crumbled to the ground. He was chewing on a cigar, the smoke trailing up into the air. He scoffed.

"A god. Don't make them like they used to," he took the cigar from his mouth and tapped away some ash. "Good riddance."

X and Jarvis joined us. X was holding Jarvis up. His head had been blown in half, sparks flickering across the hole there. He'd fought well. So did Jarvis, who had a hole in his chest. The two AI joined Fury and I in looking down on Strucker.

"...Is it over, pardner?" X asked.

"Not yet," I said softly.

I reached out to grip the Mind Stone in my telekinetic grip. I felt the Mind Stone as I brought it close to me. I gripped it in my remaining right hand.

Holy- How had Strucker held onto it as long as he had? The thing was powerful and hurt like hell. Maybe because I was already tired?

That was fine though. I only needed it for a moment.

The power I felt though… If it wasn't for the bought of humility I'd been recently hit by, I might have lost myself in it. The Mind Stone boosting the powers of an Ethereal to insane heights, turning my already reality-shifting psychic powers into something beyond that.

I felt the psychic plane shift. The minds that had been drawn to Strucker and I fighting. They had looked in on the fight between two psychic powers. Some with greed. Some with worry.

Now? They fell back. Almost all their eyes faded. If they'd stayed, I would have known everything about them. It would have taken no effort.

That was the level of power. Effortless. True strength is like that. Where all feats are simple as breathing.

I pushed that thought down. I pushed down the thought that I could simply rip apart the minds of every HYDRA soldier, Kree, Remorath, and other enemies currently attacking us. I could turn them good, mind-control them into allies. Maybe spread my reach further. Turn the world into a utopia. A place whose minds would be under my control. I could turn all humanity into a place where everyone's morals were my own...

Instead, I sent one message out to them.

"Sleep."

The wave of psychic power infected the air. It spread outwards, echoing to every enemy soldier. Fighter ships fell out of the sky. They passed out mid-run, while shooting guns, in cover, even as they were shot in the head.

"Sleep."

The command echoed into the world around us. I had to pull back when I noticed even Fury slowly closing his eyes before they snapped open.

"Sleep."

In a single moment, the battlefield was quiet.

"...Now it's over," I said softly.

Then, I held out the Mind Stone. X took it and placed it in a pouch at his side.

"What now," X said.

"Now we count casualties," Fury said, looking tired. Now that I looked at him, he looked horrible. Bruised and battered. His shoulder had a bleeding bandage I recognized as a gunshot wound. "Then. Well. We all have a drink."

"Mr. Fury. Mr. Schahed," Jarvis said, drawing our attention. "We've isolated the broadcast."

Broadcast? Oh right. Hydra had been sending out some kind of message we couldn't figure out.

"What was it?" Fury asked.

"The battle," Jarvis sounded confused. "It seems Strucker dedicated a massive amount of computer power to sending out footage of the battlefield."

We stared at Jarvis.

"Why the hell would he do that!?" I asked, befuddled. "Was he trying to get more subscribers on Twitch or something?"

Fury didn't respond to my sarcasm. Instead, he looked over at Strucker's corpse, his single eye-widening. "To send a message. Jarvis, what was the broadcast being sent to?"

"One moment… it was broadcast across the world. But now that we can follow it, it looks like it was also sent out into space, sir," Jarvis said. "He used the technology of the aliens under his command to send a live-stream of the fight. With multiple levels."

Oh. Oh shit.

"The whole galaxy?" I mumbled.

"Perhaps," Jarvis said. "The broadcast was public."

"He wanted to make sure the rest of the universe saw the fight," Fury growled. "Who knows how many aliens just saw what we're capable of. They know how dangerous we are…"

And how valuable.

Strucker had made sure he would get the last laugh. I had no idea how the footage would be seen across every species out there. But they would know about us now. They saw Earth's warriors. Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, Black Panther, Luna Snow, Thor, Ares.

I stared up into the sky. Fuck. Things had gotten complicated again.

Peter Quill/Starlord

On Caligula Station, in a bar calledThe Broken Blade, Peter stared at a hologram in front of him, the sexy Aakon woman clutching to his arm almost forgotten, his drink spilling on the floor.

An image of a weird alien he never saw turning into a human with a flash of green, with two robots and another human standing next to him, blinked away as the broadcast ended.

Holy. Shit. That was Earth. Earth. His home planet. He thought it was boring! Not… whatever that had been!

"Damn, Quill," some random Guna, a short reptilian guy with a big ass head, shouted with a laugh at the other end of the bar. "I ain't ever seen you fight like that! Maybe you'd be half the badass you pretend to be if you did that kind of shit!"

Quill may have been shocked, but he would be damned before he missed a chance to brag. "That's cause I never had to fight like that! Maybe if one of you idiots ever gave me a real challenge, I'd pull out some of my real tricks!"

A few jeers came from the other patrons.

"Who were those guys, anyway?" A Krylorian asked Quill, the red-skinned man looking genuinely curious. "The Avengers? What is that?"

Quill froze. The Aakon woman on his arm looked at him, her gaze burning as the light bounced off her yellow skin.

"Well uh, they're friends of He-Man!" Quill spurted out. "I told you guys about that guy, remember?"

"Oh come on, that bullshit-" someone shouted.

"Nah, I kinda believe him," Quill nearly fell out of his seat. "You see the Asgardian and Olympian there?"

"What, so Quill isn't full of shit!?" someone else shouted.

Quill grinned as the Aakon woman pulled closer to him, crooning in his ear. "Tell me more stories about Earth."

Well damn. Looks like things would be looking up for Peter Quill.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Author's Note: On some level, this might be my favorite chapter I've ever done. It finishes up a lot of the themes of this arc, namely the power of symbols among others. I spent a lot of time agonizing over portraying things in just the right way.

One thing I'm a bit saddened by was that I sort of had to fly past the battle where Dial and the Avengers fought Strucker's constructs. If I could, I would write every single moment of that, have the play by play of ALL your favorite or least favorite heroes and BRIDGE soldiers smashing through New York. But that ended up being unfeasible.

Maybe one day I can do that, or have someone write a series of Omakes focused purely on, say, Tony, Galina, and Rhodey fighting villains from the Iron Man movies, Steve, Punisher, and Bucky taking on Hydra soldiers new and old.

That said. I'm still damn proud of this chapter. I did some cool stuff I think. Oh, and SCP-682. I know some fans of the SCP's will be disappointed he lost, since his main thing is NOT dying. Remember, it wasn't the real deal, just a construct of the mind, something Mind Stone would eventually be able to overcome. Still hard to kill, and a big part of Strucker's mind breaking down was the difficulty he had taking constructs like him down, but still just a mental impression, and thus WAY weaker than the real deal.