Siege of the Avengers Tower part 1

Raven gasped for air when her astral form returned to her body, the whole process far from gentle in her desperate haste. Bruce held her to stop her from falling, her muscles tensing because of the shock, and everybody in the room ran to her with worried expressions.

"They are coming!" Raven announced, as soon as she was able, trying to get up. "The Hand is coming!"

It took them maybe a second to truly comprehend what she meant, but as trained warriors that had been through many crises, their reaction was fast.

"Jarvis, I want you to engage all defense systems," Natasha Romanoff ordered, her expression completely serious now. "Sound the alarm and get the security to guide all personnel to the safe rooms. Also, give me access to the security cameras, please."

"As you wish, Agent Romanoff," the A.I answered, and a second later an alarm started blaring loudly.

"This is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill. All personnel must accompany the security team to the nearest safe room. Please remain calm and follow the safety measures addressed during training. This is not a drill, I repeat…"

While the emergency message looped, warning everyone inside the Avengers Tower, all the computers inside the lab turned on, the screens showing the images of the security cameras all over the building. Heavy, reinforced steel doors began to seal strategic points, closing corridors, cutting outside access to critical places — like the research's labs and the Avengers' armory — and to where staff was. The entrance was sealed shut.

She could see on the screens as the security teams placed on each floor acted, beginning to lead the personnel through the corridors in a fast, but organized manner, going towards the safe rooms scattered in tactical points of the building; a well thought contingency plan, she considered, especially since the Tower could be a target to every kind of villain out there at any point.

Shaking her head, Raven forced herself to ignore the loud alarm, Jarvis' voice, and her own growing fears. She knew something like this would happen. She knew she was putting them all at risk just by being there. She shouldn't have stayed, she knew that. So why did she?

The answer was simple: for the first time since Azarath, Raven felt at home.

She was around people that didn't fear her, people that helped her, people that reached out and made her feel welcome. Raven was around friends. And right now, all of them were about to face a powerful enemy just because of her.

The worst thing? Raven had no other option than to stand her ground. No matter how much she wanted to just surrender, to stop all this and get everyone caught in the crossfire far away, if she did so, it was all over.

The Hand would use her to bring forth Trigon and the universe would be doomed.

Unless, of course, she chose to take her own life… Closing her eyes, Raven did her best to push those thoughts out. Right now, they were of no use to her. If all went wrong, she knew what she had to do, but like Clark said, she would fight first.

It wasn't as if the Hand would stop the attack, anyway. Raven dead or alive, they would continue until someone stopped them.

"Where the fuck is Clark?" Jessica Jones, Clark's abrasive neighbor, asked her, as Natasha shouted orders on her radio.

Raven opened her eyes and looked at her.

"He stayed behind to destroy the Lazarus Pit and prevent the dragon from being resurrected," Raven answered. "An astral projection of Madame Gao was there." She paused, unable to meet their eyes. "They are coming for me."

There were a few seconds of silence as they digested the new information.

"Well, they're not gonna get you," Clint Barton said, fidgeting with an arrow as he watched the monitors. "There isn't anywhere safer than this place. Not even a heavy bombardment would bring this building down, it's locked tighter than a nuclear bunker."

At the moment he said that, on several different floors all over the Tower, fiery portals began to open.

They watched on the screens, momentarily stunned, as the defenses were breached without so much as a warning and dozens of people began to pour out of the portals, running more like ravenous animals than men, filling the corridors of the Avengers Tower.

It took Black Widow a split second to react.

"Jarvis, you have permission to use lethal force," she said. "Keep them away from the personnel at all costs."

"Consider it done, Agent Romanoff," the polite British voice answered.

And completely opposite to his calm and composed voice, Jarvis started to fight back.

Heavy turrets — concealed behind the walls and ceiling — appeared in the corridors where the portals had opened. And without even a moment of hesitation, they began to fire, decimating the invaders in a cold, calculated and yet brutal manner. The wave of people pouring out of the portals was met with barrage of bullets, all fired with incredible and precise aim, as the turrets dropped one target after the other; she could hear the muffled sounds of the shots even from where she was.

It was a scene of pure carnage, and if Raven hadn't already seen far worse — nothing could possibly compare to the sight of Azarath after Trigon's attack, after all —, she would've been traumatized for life. Agent Romanoff and Clint Barton barely reacted, but Bruce, Jessica Jones and Mr. Murdock were clearly disturbed by the bloodbath filling the screens.

But despite all this, despite the mere sight of what was happening be capable of shocking some of the hardest individuals Raven had ever met, the Hand's soldiers just kept coming. It was as if they hadn't any regard for their well-being, as if they were completely fearless even when faced against the threat of pain, mutilation and death.

"Demons," Raven breathed, when she realized what should've been obvious, what she should've felt the moment when one of those foul creatures appeared within ten miles of her. Everyone looked at her, tension clear on their faces. "They are not people anymore, they are wearing the bodies of people, like the assassin Mr. Murdock stopped in the art gallery. Those men and women are already dead."

Even the ones who still had a shred of their own minds were doomed, Raven knew. The Beast, and the demons who served him, were not gentle when they forced themselves in, and even less gentle when they were forced out. The human soul, in the cases where it was still there, would be ripped out when the demons left.

There was no way to save any of those people. For all intents and purposes, those were all demons in human form, and if they couldn't accept this fact and fight, they would die and join their ranks, when more demons appeared to take over their bodies.

"Do not hesitate," Raven warned, a bitter taste in her mouth; Mr. Murdock turned to face her, a stunned expression, probably to make sure he hadn't misheard her. "Do not think of them as human beings, because they are not, not anymore. They are bodies inhabited by demons, nothing more."

Almost as if to prove her point, one of the demons possessing a man jumped against the wall, running on all fours on its surface, his fingers digging deep with unnatural strength; and before Jarvis could shoot him down, he jumped and ripped out the nearest turret with a single blow of his bare hand.

"What the fu—" Jessica Jones started to say, but stopped, interrupted by something much more urgent than her incessant need to cuss.

A portal opening in the middle of the lab they were in.

It happened too fast. The fiery, circular portal cut a whole in space and suddenly a wave of crazed, possessed people started throwing themselves in. There were men wearing expensive suits, women wearing beautiful dresses, some dressed in rags, others wearing nothing at all. Many had injuries all over their bodies, while others seemed completely healthy. Some ran like people, armed with tools and weapons, while there were those who appeared to be completely animalistic, drooling and roaring as they advanced like demonic hounds.

And suddenly, they were in a battle for their lives.

Agent Romanoff and Clint were the first to react, shooting at the horde without hesitation, their bullets and arrows dropping the first demons before they had the chance to even think about doing anything; like before, the rest of the demons didn't even seem to notice, simply pushing the fallen away and stepping over their dead companions to continue the attack.

That is, until they met Jessica Jones' Thanagarian mace.

Raven knew Clark possessed far more physical strength than anyone she had ever met, but he also possessed more restraint than the most disciplined monks in Azarath; Jessica Jones didn't. And she also apparently had no qualms about unleashing her full violent side, even against foes that looked like people, something that would make many hesitate.

Every hit of her mace sent the demons flying, the sound of their broken bodies echoing in the closed room. They looked like ragdolls, as Jessica Jones swatted them like pesky flies, one after the other; not unlike Sauron did against the Last Alliance of Men and Elves, in that ridiculously long movie Clark guilted her into watching with him. The first wave within her distance was thrown back to where they came, when Jessica hit three of them at the same time, tossing several of them into the portal with a brutality that left Raven frozen in place.

And then she just kept hitting, nonstop, and demons continued to be sent flying away, bouncing against the walls, ceiling and each other, the bodies they possessed broken beyond repair, forcing the incorporeal beings back to their realm.

Agent Romanoff and Clint kept firing and after a few moments of stunned inaction, Mr. Murdock also got into the fight, swinging his billy clubs as he attacked the demons lucky enough to avoid Jessica Jones' mace, his red Devil suit almost a weapon itself against the unarmored demons.

Bruce was the only one that didn't get involved, remaining close by her side, but Raven knew it had nothing to do with cowardice; if he started fighting, he wouldn't stop, and maybe the "Big Guy", as he called him, would end up causing more damage than the demons themselves. It was for the best that he only unleashed his rage if needed; the Hulk could be a danger to anyone around him, especially in small, closed locations, much like herself.

But unlike the Hulk, there was something Raven could do to help, something she should have already done, if the sheer brutality of the sudden fight hadn't paralyzed her.

Focusing her power, Raven lifted her hand towards the portal; a black aura surrounded the fiery arch, as she pitted her will and strength against the sorcerer responsible for the magic, trying to overcome it.

A very difficult thing to do, but if there was one thing Raven had above all other sorcerers, was untamed raw power.

She felt the exact moment when the sorcerer could no longer sustain the magic; then she closed her hand. The portal was sealed shut, quickly and without warning, cutting in half two demons who were about to cross it. Ignoring the absolute gore in front of her, Raven closed her eyes, trying to feel the other portals opened in the Tower, searching for any unknown magic signature close by.

And one by one, Raven forced them close, cutting the apparently unlimited supply of demon soldiers the Hand threw against them.

For a moment, there was absolute silence, as their eyes went from the corpses in the room to the monitors, searching for the next immediate threat.

"What the fuck was that?" Jessica Jones asked, breaking the silence, her eyes wide.

"The Legions of the Beast," Raven said, panting, as she tried to center herself. "Foot soldiers, most likely. Weaker demons usually cannot assume physical form in our world, so they have to possess people to properly interact."

"So all these people…?" Mr. Murdock asked, only to be interrupted.

"Most are already dead," Raven clarified, feeling his anguish. "The few that are not, are beyond saving. Successful exorcisms are rare, and they only work if the demons actually have any intention of not killing their host. It is not the case here. They needed a body, so they took one."

The knowledge that they hadn't killed people that could be saved was a comfort, but a small one, when faced with the fact that a lot of people had still died at the hands of demons; Raven knew that wasn't a peaceful or painless way to go.

"We can talk about the dead later," Clint said, drawing their attention. "Those who are still breathing come first. Jarvis, did the security teams evacuate the personnel safely?"

"Yes, Agent Barton, with the exception of the 27º floor," the A.I answered, promptly. "The hostiles managed to breach the defenses on that floor and five people were cut off from the rest of the group. They are currently hiding inside the office."

"Foggy and Karen," Mr. Murdock said suddenly, alarmed. "That's the same floor where we were working. Are they amongst the ones left behind?"

There was a moment of silence, as Jarvis probably analyzed the images.

"Yes, Mr. Murdock. Mr. Nelson and Miss Page are currently hiding inside a room with the rest of the personnel. They are not in imminent danger, however. I sealed the corridor leading to that room, but my access to the defenses mechanisms on that floor are limited, since the hostiles destroyed most of my weaponry." The A.I paused. "As long as they do not draw the hostiles' attention, they should remain safe, but it is unlikely that Mr. Nelson, Miss Page and the other employees can find a path to the safe room by themselves."

"I'm going there," Mr. Murdock said, immediately.

Agent Romanoff and Clint shared a quick look.

"Go with him," she said, and before any of them could add anything, Matt Murdock and Clint ran to the door.

"Wait!" Raven said. They stopped, turning to her. Instead of explaining right away why she called them, Raven lifted her hand; a portal, entirely black like a circular fragment of literal darkness, opened slowly in the air. "It will take you to the 27º floor. I would open it directly where they are, but it might draw the demons' attention. This way you may have a chance to sneak past them or at least take them by surprise." Both of them eyed the dark portal with visible uneasiness. "Tell Jarvis when you secure them, and I'll bring you back here."

By the look on their faces, Matt and Clint would rather jump out of the windowthan go through the black portal, but with a nod of thanks, they disappeared into it; Raven closed the portal behind them.

Natasha turned to Raven. "Can you stop any more portals from being opened?"

"Yes," Raven answered right away, ignoring the drops of sweat running down her face. "Or at least I can close any new ones very fast."

"Good enough. Bruce, please stay with her."

"Of course," Bruce agreed. "And where are you going?"

"I'm going hunting," Natasha Romanoff said, simply. She looked at Jessica Jones. "Are you coming with?"

"Fuck yeah!" Jessica Jones answered, swinging the fearsome mace in her hands as she no doubt prepared herself to make any demon that crossed into the Tower to sorely regret their decision.

Without saying anything else, both of them turned to leave. But before they could, before they had a chance to even think about their next destination, a powerful roar made the entire building tremble. The lights flicked on and off, the windows cracked, and Raven could swear that she felt her very bones shake. As if they were one, all of them approached the windows, searching for the source of such terrifying sound.

And there, over the skies of New York, a dragon was flying towards the Avengers Tower.

"We're in the shit now," Jessica Jones breathed, her voice a mere whisper.

Raven couldn't help but agree with her.

Natasha Romanoff was not someone easily impressed.

She had faced gods and aliens, elves and sorceresses. She had seen incredible acts of magic and traveled on a literal spaceship. She even witnessed the power of the Infinity Stones, the cosmic relics that possessed enough energy and potency to wipe out planets — and maybe more — in the blink of an eye. She learned so many new things in the last few years that she almost thought nothing would amaze her anymore.

Ao Shun, the Dragon King of Winter, impressed her. So much, that Natasha was, for once, without words.

He was shaped like a traditional Eastern dragon, long like a serpent, with four limbs, horns, and no wings. His scales were black like the night, with patches of radioactive green in some places, glowing strong against the dark body. But it wasn't so much the sight of a real-life Eastern dragon that shocked Natasha.

It was the massive size of it.

The size of the skeleton she had seen in the Pyramiden tomb did no justice to the actual magnitude of the being flying in their direction; even the Chitauri Leviathans seemed small in comparison. Hell, even the Helicarriers were tiny next to it.

When Ao Shun flew over the city, it was like a solar eclipse had taken place. Day turned into night in a split second, and the thunderous noise as the serpent-like dragon cut the air with his huge body would make a storm seem quiet. But it went beyond that, beyond the mere presence of a gigantic creature moving fast through the sky: the weather itself seemed to respond to him.

The cracked windows were suddenly foggy, and the temperature dropped fast, as if they were suddenly in the middle of winter in Russia. The wind seemed out of control, no different than the beginnings of a hurricane, and they could see the people in the streets running to the buildings, not only to escape the flying monster, but the climate itself, as objects began to fly around and men and women began to get dragged through the streets. Pitch black clouds appeared out of nothing, clacking with electricity, and the constant glow lightning turned into the main source of light the city have.

And suddenly, before any of them could have done anything, Ao Shun descended from the skies.

It happened too fast. The entire Tower trembled, and they had to hold themselves any way they could to not fall, but they barely noticed that. No, their full attention was on the dragon, on the terrible soundshe made, as he wrapped his gigantic body around the entire Avengers Tower! One, two, three times, the scales pulverizing windows and cracking the walls of the building as the dragon slithered over them, no different than an anaconda crushing its prey, until he had enveloped the Avengers Tower from bottom to top.

Until the tip of his tail was touching the ground, while his head looked down on them from the sky.

Natasha found herself unable to speak for an entire minute.

If there was one thing that she had never thought she would see, was a skyscraper being enveloped by massive snake-like creature. Somehow, the thought had never crossed her mind, and Natasha liked to think she had a wild imagination. But this? Still stunned, she approached the window, looking up and down, the dragon so massive that she could only see sections of the powerful body wrapped around the building, from the ground floor to way beyond the top floor, each individual black scale the size of her own body and thicker than several plates of reinforced steel put together.

And all that size, all that power, was currently one step away of crushing the entire Avengers Tower into rubbles; it was a wonder he hadn't done that by accident when he wrapped himself around them.

That thing made Godzilla look small! She wondered if they even had a weapon strong enough to hurt him, short of a nuclear bomb, and even that wasn't a guarantee; they were immortal magical dragons, after all. What sort of sorceries could that thing even do? Weather manipulation, it seemed, was one of them. And even if they could put them down, could they put themselves back together? Natasha had no idea and it bothered her to no end.

Those things willingly went to war against Asgardians and others of their own kind; she was beginning to think this was a little bit above their paygrade.

"Where the fuck is Clark?" Jessica asked again, almost a whisper, her voice thick with worry.

At the same time that Natasha also wanted that question answered, she was afraid of it. Clark went to the Lazarus Pit to stop the dragon resurrection; and yet, the dragon was here, alive, and Clark wasn't anywhere in sight.

She was trying not to expect the worse, but it was somehow impossible to be optimistic while a monster of that size was wrapped around the Avengers Tower.

"BLACK SKY!" Ao Shun thundered, so loudly that the Tower shook and the clouds parted.

It weren't words, or at least not words in any language that Natasha had ever heard before. The whole thing sounded more like a roar than anything else, but somehow her mind could process the meaning as if she were fluent in whatever tongue that was.

And even if that was all the dragon said, they could all understand what he wanted: for Raven to surrender herself to him.

Impossible, Natasha answered in silence. From a tactical standpoint, surrendering Raven would accomplish nothing, it would simply give the Hand what they needed to completely destroy their world. From a moral standpoint, they would be condemning a 15-year-old girl to unspeakable torment at the hands of some very bad people and, most likely, at the hands of Evil itself, Raven's father.

Natasha would die before she ever did something like this.

"Raven," Natasha said, finally getting her head back in the game. The girl looked at her; no matter how composed she seemed, Natasha could see she was scared. "Can you open a portal and escape?"

The slightly surprised — and relieved — look on her face told Natasha that Raven was expecting them to surrender her to the dragon. Not such an out of place thought, really; Natasha had witness panicked people do terrible things in her long career, both in SHIELD and the Red Room.

Fear and despair had a tendency to show people's true faces, unfortunately.

"I could," the girl answered, slowly, "but the only thing keeping Ao Shun from destroying this place is my presence. The moment he senses I'm no longer here…"

"He'll burn the whole fucking city," Jessica Jones finished the thought.

"Most likely," Raven agreed.

"Can you trap it inside the Mirror Dimension?" Bruce asked, eyes fixed on the one section of Ao Shun's body they could see.

"A rift that big… He would see it coming from a mile away," Raven said. "And even if I could, if you think he wouldn't come back right away, then you sorely underestimate what we're dealing with. Dragons are not beasts, they are ancient and intelligent beings. He probably has more magical knowledge than 99% of the sorcerers on the planet."

There was a moment of silence.

"We'll have to fight then," Bruce said, resigned, taking off his glasses with a slight hesitation. "I guess it's my turn."

"No!" Natasha said, as Bruce stepped towards the window; he looked back, surprised. "The Hulk doesn't understand the concept of collateral damage. If you fight that thing, in the middle of New York, there won't be a city left to save, even if you win." She paused. "Let's call that 'Plan B'."

"What's 'Plan A' then?" Jessica asked.

Natasha stared at the dragon.

"Jarvis, send in the Iron Legion," Natasha ordered. "I want eyes on what's happening. Also, seal the windows."

"That's 'Plan A'? Those fucking robots?" Jessica exclaimed. "What the hell do you think they're going to do against that?!"

Reinforced steel plates closed in front of every window in the building, not only hindering visibility from outside, but also giving them one more layer of protection; a layer of protection that might as well be inexistent against a foe like that, but still.

"No, they're just distraction," Natasha explained, grabbing her phone. "I'm calling 'Plan A' right now."

If Natasha were a religious woman, she would be praying not to hear Clark's ringtone coming from inside the dragon's stomach.

Matt took a blow so powerful that he was certain he would have died if not for his new suit.

Normal people's brains naturally limited the amount of strength one could use, to lower the chances of damage to the muscles and bones; corpses possessed by demons had no such issue and Matt was finding that out firsthand.

The fist that hit him cracked on impact, his head was thrown back, and even with the Chitauri fabric doing its job, Matt felt a sharp stab of pain on his head; his answer to that was to headbutt the opponent, his helmet cracking the skull of the possessed man in a single blow.

With a grunt, he launched himself against another enemy, using his billy clubs to unleash what would've been lethal blows if the people fighting him weren't already dead. From a distance, Clint Barton fired arrow after arrow, never missing, never hesitating, even as Matt moved in front of him in the narrow corridor.

"Nat, am I going crazy, or do we have a dragon wrapped around the building right now?" Clint asked on his communicator, never stopping to cover Matt as he talked.

"Dragon? Have you been drinking, Clint?"

"I hope so, but unfortunately I think I'm pretty damn sober right now."

One of Clint's arrow hit a demon in the middle of his chest and Matt kicked him away, throwing him back against a fast approaching mob; before they could advance, however, Matt listened to a small click and suddenly the arrow exploded, ripping them all apart in a burst of pure carnage that Matt was glad he couldn't actually see.

For a moment, they could breathe in peace, finally having a break from demonic attacks ever since they'd crossed Raven's portal.

Or at least they would, if not for the gigantic dragon flying around them.

Matt almost fell to his knees when the dragon appeared out of nowhere. Not because of the sudden cold, not because of unbelievably loud sounds he made — either by roaring or simply moving in the sky with that humongous body —, not because of the idea of something that terrifying even existing.

But because of the sudden explosion of chi that overwhelmed his senses, as if a sun had just lit in front of someone who lived his entire life in the dark.

The dragon hunting them was bursting with life energy, so much that it affected the world around him. It was power incarnate, and Matt couldn't help but to wonder what they could do against something like that.

It was a question that apparently bothered Clint as well.

"How the hell did Thor kill that thing again?" Clint asked Natasha, as they ran through the corridors to rescue Foggy and Karen.

"He cut off his head with a magical axe."

"Well, we're out of magical axes. And thunder gods to swing them, for that matter. I don't think we can use that strategy."

"Probably not."

"Plus, have you seen the size of that thing?" Clint exclaimed. "I think it can swallow the Quinjet as easily as we would swallow a bug."

"Have you swallowed many bugs in your time, Clint?"

"The point is, what's the plan?" Clint continued, undeterred by Natasha's gallows humor banter.

Matt heard her sighing, and no matter how much she was trying to hide it, he knew worry when he listened to it.

"I'm calling 'The Plan' right now, but he isn't answering. Jarvis is keeping the dragon distracted with the Iron Legion, that should keep his attention off us for the time bein—"

The moment Natasha said that, Matt felt a mass of air being dislocated fast on the outside, as something of the size of a mountain moved. Almost on pure instinct, he jumped against Clint, throwing him back.

Right when a huge clawed hand broke through the walls, smashing inside the building as if it were made of cardboard.

The windows — sealed with reinforced steel — offered no resistance, breaking as easily as the walls when the dragon's hand simply destroyed the corridor they were in, pulverizing the exact spot they were about to be, punching a hole of the size of a bus in the Avengers Tower.

The scaled hand — that had sharp claws bigger than him or Clint — remained there for a moment, then was pulled back, dragging with it dust and debris; inside, crushed against what was left standing of the room, was a smashed suit of the Iron Legion.

It was probably a dragon's equivalent of killing an annoying fly.

Clint and Matt turned to stare at the hole created by the immense hand, feeling the freezing outside air blowing in. He could hear the dragon move and roar, as the suits of the Iron Legion flew around him, shooting bursts of energy that seemed to have no effect against the dark scales other than piss him off.

"Clint?! Answer me now or I swear to—"

"We're still here," Clint replied, his voice surprisingly normal, even though his face was pale. "But we're going to have to be a little acrobatic now. Our previous path was kind of, umm, demolished."

"Tell Murdock to check his billy clubs, there should be a retractable steel fiber cable in them, according to what Potter said."

A bit surprised, Matt fidgeted with his weapon for a moment; then, finding a place to attach the cable, he brought his arm down, unleashing the grappling hook as the billy club split into two, one of the halves attaching itself to the other side of the broken corridor.

"Huh. I like it," Matt said.

"Grappling hooks are always useful," Clint agreed, attaching a cable of his own around an arrow and firing it against a wall on the other side. "Problem solved, Nat."

"Great. One more thing: I know you were intending to bring Mr. Nelson, Miss Page and the others back here, but I think it's better if you take them to the safe room. The elevator will take them underground and at the moment, well…"

"Best place to be, since we have a dragon about to crush this place to dust," Clint finished, as Matt swung to the other side. "Got it."

"Almost as bad as Budapest, huh?"

"I swear to god, Nat, you and I have probably been to very different parts of Budapest," Clint said, grabbing his steel cable and preparing to jump across the hole.

Foggy was freaking out.

Silently, sure, but freaking out, nonetheless. And he had pretty good reason to, in his opinion, because as far as he could tell, either Armageddon had arrived early or someone was attacking the Avengers Tower.

Possibly both.

An emergency alarm blared without warning, insane people somehow invaded the building, turrets had appeared out of the ceiling and walls and started firing against the crazed invaders and while all that happened, he and Karen were separated from the group led by the security team and had to hide with some other people.

A bad situation by itself, but anything bad could eventually turn worse; it didn't take long for that to happen.

Something big had attacked the building. Foggy didn't know what, but whatever it was, it made the entire thing shake and for a moment he feared the whole place would come crashing down on their heads. Luckily, that hadn't happened, at least not yet, but regardless of what was happening outside, things inside hadn't improved at all.

Crazy people were still running around the corridors, screaming and groaning, not unlike zombie hordes from horror movies. The weather, for some unexplainable reason, had turned extremely cold out of the blue.

And whatever had attacked the tower on the outside was now hitting the tower and causing damages on the inside.

Maybe working for the Avengers wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

No matter, Foggy had to remain strong. If not for his sake, then for Karen's. Matt, fortunately, wasn't there that day — and Foggy hoped he was okay, because these kinds of things tended to spread far, one didn't need to look further than the Incident or Black Zero Event to know that —, so for now he only had to worry about Karen and himself.

Which was enough, given how useless he felt in that situation, as the guttural noises of the zombie horde reached his ears when they passed in front of the room they were hiding in once again.

How the hell would they get out? Where would they even go? Was there a safe place in all this? Foggy had no idea, but he refused to give up. He looked at Karen and at the three women hiding under the desks.

"Hey, everything is going to be okay," he said, trying to calm their sobbing. "I promise."

He had no idea how he would keep that promise, but when he felt Karen holding his hand, he knew he would. Somehow.

Okay, Foggy thought, what they needed first was a destination. According to the emergency message blaring nonstop, there was a safe room somewhere on that floor; supposedly, the rest of the personnel was already there. All they had to do was reach that place.

Which brought them to the next step of Foggy's master plan: how to do that.

The corridors were full of those crazy individuals. Foggy had seen them attacking everything on sight, running without fear against bullets and even attacking the turrets with their bare hands. Foggy was no Superman, so fighting them was out of the question, but he had to go through them somehow to reach the safe room.

There was only one possible answer: they would have to sneak past them.

Someone would have to distract the horde, draw them to the opposite side, while the rest of the people escaped to the safe room. Hopefully, that person would be able to somehow lose the pursuers and double back to the safe room, but, well, Foggy had an inkling of who would get to be bait in this scenario.

And he wasn't exactly confident in his athletic capabilities to bet he would pull it off.

He looked at Karen, seeing how scared she was. The past few days hadn't been easy on her, with Fisk suddenly becoming New York's newest hero in the public's eyes. She was forced to watch as the man who destroyed her life — and many others — was put on a pedestal and pretty much worshipped by the media, as if he were a saint.

If that wasn't bad enough, now they had to deal with this. Karen didn't deserve this.

Foggy sighed. He was never a coward, but he would be lying if he said he wasn't scared shitless of what he was about to do. It was practically a suicide mission, and the "suicide" part would probably be painful as hell.

But if he managed to buy time so Karen and the rest of these innocent people could live, well, Foggy was willing to try.

Taking a deep breath, knowing he wouldn't be able to do it if he waited much more, Foggy squeezed Karen's hand.

"Hey, you remember the path to the safe room?" Foggy whispered, looking into her eyes.

Confused, she nodded.

"I'll make a path for you and the others. When you can, run."

"Foggy?" Karen asked, starting to sound alarmed, but Foggy was already up, knowing that if he hesitated now, he wouldn't be able to do it.

He walked to the door, a cold sweat running down his face, and took another deep breath, ready to shout at the top of his lungs to draw their attention.

Before he could, however, someone else did.

"I AM AN INNOCENT AND UNARMED CIVILIAN, PLEASE DO NOT ATTACK ME!"

Foggy froze as the familiar British voice screamed from the opposite side of the corridor, drawing the horde's attention; their response was nearly instantaneous.

Their roared, growled and yelled, running towards the direction of the sound, forcing Foggy to thrown himself to the ground so they wouldn't see him peeking through the small window on the door. Karen and the three other women were also frozen in place, eyes wide as they watched him.

"I created a distraction, Mr. Nelson," the same British voice spoke again, but this time in a much lower tone, and from inside the office they were in.

"Jarvis?!" Karen exclaimed.

"Yes, Miss Page. I have drawn the hostiles from the path to the safe room, but I currently possess no means to disable them, so I advise haste."

"You want us to go outside?" Foggy asked, his heart beating so fast he was nearly passing out.

"Was that not your plan, Mr. Nelson? Your courage is commendable, but it might have been a better idea to consult me first."

Well, now it was easy to say that! How was he supposed to know they weren't alone? He looked at Karen, embarrassed, and she glared at him.

Then, out of nowhere, she grabbed his face and kissed him.

"You are an idiot, Foggy." Karen said, then kissed him again. "But a brave one."

Foggy was dazed, completely hypnotized by Karen's eyes; that's why he never saw her hand coming, smacking him on the top of the head.

"Never do that again," Karen warned, serious, getting up. She helped the other three women up as well. "Time to go. Let's run!"

He took a second to regain his faculties, but when Karen opened the door and stepped out, leading everyone, Foggy jumped up and followed. And then they were running. Foggy had never run so fast in his life, the literal threat to his life making his body work to the limit. He could hear the sounds of the "zombie horde", still relatively far from them, but at the same time too close, given what would happen if they were caught.

"Turn left," Jarvis' voice guided them, and the five of them obeyed immediately.

Now that they were outside, the sounds seemed far louder than before. Foggy had no idea what exactly could even make those noises, but he sure as hell didn't want to meet that face to face. Turning right this time, they picked up the pace, hoping to arrive to the safe room before anything could notice them.

That plan was shot to hell when Jarvis suddenly announced: "It appears the hostiles have realized our ruse. They are approaching fast."

Foggy swore he would start jogging if they survived this, as he tried to ignore the sharp stabs of pain in his ribs. Karen and the rest of the girls were gaining distance, two of them running barefooted, and Foggy redoubled his efforts when he started hearing the guttural noises of the horde again.

"Oh, no," he panted, knowing without looking that they were catching up.

He could see the door to the safe room at the end of the corridor, huge and thick, almost like a cross between an elevator and a vault door. Just a little bit more, Foggy told himself, seeing Karen and the girls getting closer, just a bit more!

Whatever illusion he had in reaching the safe room was shattered when the monster outside bashed the Avengers Tower with enough strength to generate a small earthquake, making him trip and fall.

Foggy would like to say he fell with grace, but the truth was he rolled like a deformed potato until he finally hit his face.

"FOGGY!" Karen yelled, and Foggy knew she was already coming back to pick him up.

But he also knew that if Karen did that, they were both screwed. Barely lifting his head, his entire face hurting, Foggy screamed back: "Just go! Leave me!"

The growls of the zombies were close now and Foggy realized that was it. There wasn't anything else he could do, so he just turned around to look at them, to at least face death on his own terms.

The fastest zombie was a woman, the first on the line, wearing what was once a dress, her face and body full of wounds. She was running like a beast, on all fours, and snarling and drooling, her dead eyes fixed on Foggy's.

He closed his eyes and prepared himself.

CLANG!

The loud metallic noise, so out of place in that situation, startled Foggy. He opened his eyes just in time to see some kind of metal baton bouncing from the skull of the zombie about to jump him, and fly up.

And before it could fall back down, a red clad man grabbed it, flipping over the dazed zombie and landing in front of a stunned Foggy.

Then he started to fight the horde.

Foggy had never seen anything quite like that, he admitted, unable to move as he watched it. The man was a fighting machine, swinging his batons with unnatural speed as he dropped one zombie after the other, the sounds of the broken bones filling the corridor. It took him a few more seconds to finally realize who that was.

"The Devil of Hell's Kitchen!" Foggy muttered, shocked, as he finally made the connection between the Devil suit and the man saving his life.

Well, no one could blame him for that, his mind argued; the suit was new, or at least no one else had talked about it yet. But Foggy was certain it was the same person, because he kind of doubted there were two guys known as Devils fighting bad people in New York. He wondered what he was doing in the Avengers Tower. Was he an Avenger now? Was—

"Foggy, move!" the Devil of Hell's Kitchen yelled, prompting Foggy up. He bashed a zombie in the head with his elbow and turned to him, practically shoving him in the direction of the safe room. "I'll stop them, go!"

Maybe it was how commanding that voice sounded. Maybe it was the presence of a zombie horde trying to kill him. Maybe Foggy just didn't want to argue with a man that had defeated about a dozen crazy people in a matter of seconds.

Foggy didn't know why exactly, but he obeyed and did so immediately, running towards the safe room, Karen gesturing desperately so he would hurry up.

It was only when he entered and the doors were about to close that Foggy finally realized something: how the hell did the Devil of Hell's Kitchen know his name? And that voice sure sounded familiar…

"Son of a bitch!" Foggy exclaimed, eyes wide as he finally realized.

He was probably lucky that the doors closed so fast and that the elevator took them down to the underground vault almost immediately, because Foggy's first instinct after learning that Matt was dressed in a Devil's suit — and fighting like no blind man had any business fighting — was to jump back and yell at him.

Foggy held Karen's hand, trying to calm himself. He wasn't a religious guy like Matt, but he couldn't help but to ask for some divine help in that situation.