TGS - #28

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Manhattan 

–Jack Sullivan–

Huff Huff

He huffed as he sat down on the ground next to the corpse of Wei. Contrary to what one might expect, there was no joy on his face. No happiness at defeating a foe who had given him the hardest fight of both of his lives. 

The man just would not go down. Even with his stomach looking more and more like Swiss cheese, the man just would not go down.

Instead, it had seemed as if being injured more only gave him more power to go on. 

He sighed in exhaustion and even that small action caused him a world of pain. It was a testament to Wei's prowess that even his healing powers were taking longer than they had ever taken to heal the hundreds of small cuts and stab wounds that had been inflicted on his body.

Dozens of times, he had tried to perform the mental recalibration but the man had somehow caught on to his strategy and made his head intangible. Yeah, he could do partial intangibility as well.

Such a cheat power, even more so than Obito's.

The saving grace was that he could not do that for anything other than his head or it required more concentration or something, he did not know. What he did know was that after the first 30 or so attempts, he had just…given up. He had resigned himself to killing an innocent man today. Probably. He didn't exactly know the person but he did know that his actions in the past few days were not his fault.

He might have to look more into his background and figure out if he had a family or not. They might appreciate something to bury….or burn, whatever.

He encased the body of Wei, who was still smiling even in death but this smile was not the same bloodthirsty grin as the one who was hell-bent on killing him. No, this smile was….peaceful. It was serene and calm in a way that conveyed acceptance….somehow.

Shaking his head, he banished those thoughts from his mind and floated to Stark Tower, coughing out blood as he did so. Yeah, he could heal from pretty much anything but having twin daggers shredding your insides would damage anyone. Hell, he was wondering how the hell he was even awake after enduring that much pain. Shredded internal organs or not, he was now flying wobbly on his way to stop this invasion.

It had gone on long enough. The property damage alone was astronomical and thinking of the lack of support that most communities would suffer from after this event, made him see the oncoming of a hideous Migraine.

"Ugh," He groaned softly as he fell down on one knee as soon as he reached the balcony of Stark Tower. 

He heard a thud sound and looked up to see one of Tony's suits. He was expecting it to be either Tony himself or Jarvis to speak up from the suits but he was very surprised to see Romanoff's face after the faceplate receded.

"Romanoff?" He asked her, surprised, then he tried to inject some levity into the situation, "Isn't that too…tight for you?"

He snickered at his own joke. God, the blood loss must be getting to him.

"Come on, we saw the entire fight. Just who is he?" She said as she slid one of her arms under his shoulder and literally propped him up. Good lord, he just wanted to go home and take a long hot shower and then curl up in his bed for a month.

"Who knows? He was under Loki's control as well. Gotta say that was the hardest fight I have been in. I feel like crap," He said and he meant it. He was probably running on pure adrenaline and his battered healing factor.

"ARGGGH!" Both of them paused as they heard a very vengeful scream behind them. He turned back with difficulty and immediately, his shoulders drooped in resignation as he saw who was coming.

"Oh, come on." He muttered as he let himself drop down to his knees as Loki, riding on one of the stragglers that he had taken over, soared over his form and crashed into the penthouse, destroying it further. God, Tony was going to be so annoyed when he finds out that knocking it all down and rebuilding it from the ground up was probably better and cheaper than repairing the building.

"You Tiny Mortals. I am a God." Loki's form swayed out from the dust cloud, as his entire body was one giant bruise at this point. Well, he had kicked him straight into a whole other building. Granted, he had held back but not so much. Loki was a God, after all. He could take it.

"I will not be bullied-Aaa" Loki's words stopped midway as Romanoff just blasted him with a repulsor blast courtesy of Natasha Romanoff. 

"Thanks," He muttered to her weakly as she once again propped him up. They slowly made their way to Loki whose chest was smoking although his undulating chest motions meant that he was still alive, thank god for that.

"Stark? Yeah, I got him. He's in bad shape but he will live," Romanoff muttered to Tony from inside her suit. They looked to the side as another volley of missiles struck a flying Leviathan, redirecting its attention away from Stark Tower.

"All this means nothing if we don't close that portal," Romanoff muttered as she set him up, leaning up against a wall. Wei's body followed them to rest right next to Loki's, still clad in the green barrier.

He opened his mouth to tell her but coughed violently instead, coughing up blood that he wiped almost immediately but the action was not left unnoticed by her.

"I know how to close it," He said in between coughs that wracked his entire body. God, it was very slow going, the healing process. He had so many broken bones and stab wounds that it would take the better part of a day to bring him back to peak condition, especially with all the blood loss.

"How?!" Romanoff exclaimed as she once again helped him stand up a bit. With some difficulty, he willed his barriers to operate his body like a marionette.

"Using this," He said as he created another barrier around the sceptre that was just lying behind Loki, stuck in the wall.

"How could you possibly know that?" The suspicion in her voice was warranted but now was not the time for that. He had waited long enough for the nuke to come. The damage to the city was piling up and they had already had a close call with one of the Air Force pilots who lost an entire arm to Chitauri attacks before he was rescued.

Well, he had played his part and he didn't know about anyone else, but he for one was done with this fight.

"I just do," He smirked at her, not that she could see it, what with his entire face having just two flaming eyes. He did not want anybody to see his real face but it would be safe to say that his carefree days of living with Pops were now over.

Pity, he liked living with that whimsical old man with a unique perspective on life.

Slowly, carefully, he floated on top of the Tower and landed harshly in front of the portal machine, housing the Tesseract. He could feel the power of the barrier that surrounded the Tesseract.

"Stark, we have a way of shutting down the portal," Romanoff said as he covered the barrier sceptre into a series of barriers so that he could exert enough force to breach the shield though judging by the movies, even Romanoff could do it so it might not be necessary but it never hurt to be prudent.

"What! WHY?" He whirled on Romanoff who exclaimed very loudly, the duress in her voice very clear to him, making his head dizzy from the sudden movement.

He stumbled back a step towards the Tesseract, "What happened?"

Romanoff's face was revealed as the faceplate receded, showing him a face full of horror and terror.

Her voice was aghast as she said, "N-Nuke. There's a nuke headed our way,"

His pupils shrank as he heard that. No, this was not the time. He could have closed the portal before that and in the first place, the Helicarrier was grounded so where did the Nuke even come from?

The sceptre clanged to the ground as he readied himself to go there and help Stark.

"I have to go. We have to redirect the Nuke," He mumbled as he tried to lift himself but the small action of looking up brought a head-splitting ache along with it.

"What! No. You are in no condition to do anything. Tony is on his way," Romanoff said as she held onto his barrier with the suit, afraid that he would leave anyway, despite his terrible condition.

"Tony, is there any way you can aim the Nuke? Straight into the portal?"

"o–Okay. Okay, he is going to do it,"

He nodded with difficulty as he faced Natasha, the feeling of the barrier behind him very close to his barriers as he had stumbled very close to the Tesseract machine.

He had to wait for Tony and then try and knock him off course without touching the Nuke because there was no guarantee that the man could make the journey back in this timeline as well.

He closed his eyes and tried to summon some sensory barriers so that he could keep a closer eye on his surroundings but before he could even summon a single one, there was a high-pitched whining noise in the air as Romanoff yelled in obvious distress, "NOOOO!"

________xx__________

Deep Space [At the same time]

–The Other–

Useless. Utterly useless.

He had warned his master that Asgardians were little better than monkeys but he saw some value in the second prince of Asgard, probably because of the novelty.

He had the pleasure of breaking him, moulding him, for their purpose for a period of time far shorter than he would have liked it to be but alas, his Master's words are absolute, and as such, he had healed the little prince as best as he could and sent him on his way to Midgard.

Earth. They called their planet itself dirt. Not surprising considering the value of that little dirtball was in fact, less than dirt.

His Master had sent Loki to Midgard with the sceptre, which housed an Infinity Stone, because he had hoped to secure the Tesseract that was on Midgard for some reason.

The All-Father Odin, for some reason, had stowed the Tesseract, an invaluable artifact, on Midgard instead of on Asgard. Of course, it was not his place to comment on the affairs of the All-Father. 

As much as the current Asgardians were little more than monkeys, their All-Father, Odin Borson was the furthest thing from a monkey. One of the strongest beings in all of the cosmos, capable of defeating even his Master, in his prime that is. 

As much as his previous thoughts could be considered Blasphemy, to the likes of Ebony Maw, he knew, as did his Master, that those thoughts were true. That was the only reason why his Master had avoided venturing into the Nine realms, for they were the territory of a powerhouse on a similar level as his Master, perhaps even above.

Alas, that was the truth when Odin was in his prime. Now, he was barely a shadow of his previous might and even still, his Master was wary of entering his realm and taking the Tesseract from his grasp.

So, they had sent Loki. They had chanced upon the dying prince in the void and had been very surprised to see an Asgardian Prince in such a state but a quick intrusion (which was not at all gentle) into the Prince's mind revealed everything.

The resulting fear from Loki after he had realised the sanctity of his mind had been violated repeatedly was….delicious.

If it was in his hands, he would have tortured the Prince for an eternity, leaving him a husk of his former self, only to then show that to Asgard to destroy their morale.

Oh, what a glorious plan it was.

Only, his Master had other plans and so, he had patched up Loki's mind (after leaving in a backdoor of course) and let him leave with the sceptre, after his Master had ordered him to bring him the Tesseract in exchange for lending Loki the Chitauri.

He had been happy at Loki's progress at first, especially after seeing the powerful (relative to mortals obviously) subordinates that he had managed to secure. 

He had been elated to see that Loki had systematically destroyed the burgeoning team that was being built to stop him, whilst also ending the strongest combatant they had.

He could feel the power of that Green Guardian through his connection with Loki and he was…powerful. Not as powerful as his Master but powerful enough that he would have been able to defeat any of the Black Order individually and maybe even together.

It was good riddance but then, that same individual showed up once again, when the portal had opened up, allowing the Chitauri to invade Midgard. Only that the first wave of Chitauri were sliced apart and then forced back into the portal until he had given the order for the Mothership itself to act.

How humiliating. To use that for a planet as backwater as Midgard.

Still, this attack had opened his eyes to the threat the Midgard posed to his Master's goals. Sure, his Master was more than capable of taking down anybody in the Nine Realms save for the All-Father himself but why burden his Master when he could take care of it himself?

The ensuing fight with Loki was pathetic, if it could even be called a fight. The exiled prince lost the fight in a single exchange and was unconscious for most of the invasion.

The fight was dominated by his subordinate who showed startling proficiency with his powers, almost killing the Green Guardian. He would have been a fine candidate for the Black Order had he been raised from birth by his Master.

Alas, the Green Guardian managed to best even him, albeit not without paying a heavy cost in exchange.

He could see that the Green Guardian was on his last legs, the weakest he had ever been in this fight and hope rose in his heart when he saw the little Prince wake up and charge the Green Guardian.

Those hopes were promptly shattered as Loki was immediately knocked out, not by the Green Guardian but by some other mortal.

Oh, how low has Asgard fallen for someone like Loki to be the Second Prince?

Through his connection with the sceptre, he watched as the Green Guardian dragged his battered body up to the Tesseract and a thought entered his mind at that very moment.

It was slightly rebellious, considering that Master had ordered him to destroy any evidence that could lead back to their involvement in Loki's plan for Midgard but the what-if kept lingering in his mind.

What if he could take care of the strongest possible opponent that Master would have to face in his quest to gather the Infinity Stones? What if he could kill the Green Guardian, right there and now, at his weakest?

It had taken exploiting the situation to the best of Loki's abilities and a stroke of luck in finding an exceptionally powerful subordinate with the right skill set, on top of an ongoing Chitauri Invasion, for the Green Guardian to be severely weakened. He could not predict if they would gain a better opportunity anytime soon.

Wouldn't it be better to kill their opponents now, when they were weak and helpless, instead of when they were ready and waiting for them, potentially losing most or all of the Black Order?

Those were the thoughts that rang through his mind as he poured forth all his considerable might into the connection he had forged with the sceptre over all his years of studying it. It helped that his greatest creation, made with the help of the Mind Stone, amplified his connection with the sceptre, allowing him to use more of the Gem's powers.

He grinned in satisfaction as the sceptre was suffused with the yellow energies of the gem and rammed itself straight into the Green Guardian's chest, the positioning of the sceptre making it an even better outcome.

Word Count - 2824

A/N - A slight change of plans. NEXT chapter is the end of this arc. I promise

Also, cliffhanger-kun makes a return though this is very small and less frustrating, I Hope.

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon.

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

A/N - I promise the Invasion Arc ends next chapter.