Chapter 11

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(Mission Successful)

Ash blinked his eyes at the notification.

"Well that was easy."

He quipped, a small smile imprinted on his face. The loops were over, he was free. The loops were...over.

Ash sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a shuddering wave of relief. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground right before Kaecilious' dead body. His blood was soaking the floor of the parking lot and spreading out touching Ash's knees.

Tears fell from the teen's eyes, clouding the vision of Kaecilious' blood in his hands. He was free. No more loops.

Wait. No more loops meant...danger of death. New York was still under threat. For starters there were more Chitauri coming through the portals even faster than before. Ash wasn't a huge marvel fan but he remembered that the whole Avengers vs Chitauri fight had taken over 2 hours.

Heart pumping with fear as he now had no more lives to spare, he got to his feet quickly and removed Kaecilious cloak while looking around vigilantly. The coast was clear so he high tailed it into a less visible hiding spot, an abandoned car outside the parking space. A few Chitauri gliders happened to whoosh right down the street, so he huddled behind the car, trying to stay unnoticeable.

The fighting was only getting more heated. The Stark Tower was easily visible from where he was. Infact, he could see the waves and waves of Chitauri spewing out of the portal and spreading out.

A huge chunk would die from Thor's lightning attacks and then the others would move in to attack the Avengers who were holding the line. The ones who made it out were not many and those were the ones getting sniped from the air by Hawkeye. Those were also the ones who were attacking the normal civilians.

He was about to run towards another car when the street ahead of him was suddenly blocked by a falling Leviathan, a pressure blast washed outwards to the surroundings when the giant landed with the hulk on top of it. Hulk roared with power at his victory, attracting more Chitauri to his position and basically making Ash's only escape route unusable. Going the opposite way would only take him to the zone where the fight was more concentrated.

He watched as the green monstrosity slapped his hands together and blew away Chitauri as if they were pieces of paper drifting in the air. They slammed onto the pavement, ground and buildings, leaving behind sad looking corpses.

Dammit. Ash decided to stay behind the Lexus and hope he came up with a plan before he was turned into paste.

It was a wonder how they hadn't spotted him yet. Ash knew that would change soon the more he stayed close to the fight. The initial plan to make it past the cordon and into safety, was dead. He didn't have a lot of options left. One was to wait and hope a Superhero like Ironman saved him, which he disdained. Ash had decided earlier in the loops not to wait to be rescued.

Then the second option was to become a superhero himself. He wasn't one...but he could be. Thinking of that brought Ash's thoughts to the random power waiting for him as a reward for saving Captain America. If he couldn't quietly escape, then he was going to fight his way out.

He rubbed the slight sweat of nervousness off his face and clicked on the Ouroboros symbol at the corner of his eyes. The interface enlarged to fill his entire vision.

(Mission Successful)

(Loops remaining: 6/20.)

(Temporal Energy converted to currency)

(Received 60 Temporal Units.)

(Rewards Tallied)

-Random Ability.

(Auto spin engaged)

Hardening Quirk.

Hardening:- An ability manifested by Eijiro Kirishima aka Red Riot. Hardening gives the user the power to harden any part of their body. The Quirk protects them from most physical threats. Once activated, Eijiro becomes capable of enduring what would otherwise be lethal hazards, like tons of falling metal and multiple explosions, without leaving a scratch on his body. The hardening is skin deep and affects the eyes, hair and bones as well.

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Ash let go of the breath he was holding in. Hardening was not a bad power really. And it would help him protect his body from grievous harm. He remembered that Red Riot could take a lot of punishment and survive unscathed, his physical strength too was very impressive, almost matching his durability.

Not to mention his unbreakable form. The quirk reached its maximum level of hardening, effectively turning Red Riot into an immovable object.

The only problem was that the weaknesses of the quirk almost overweighed the strengths. For starters, moving would be a problem. Speed was not Kirishima's strongest suit. All the weight from the increased density of his body's mass slowed him down somewhat.

Secondly, Ash was not dumb enough to think this was over. He was getting the sense that this loop was only the first of many. Clearly, whoever had brought him here had done so for a specific reason. And given the fact that everything pointed at the system he had being based off of time loop mechanics, he had a bad feeling that he wasn't as free as he had initially thought. Whatever else was coming for him, he would tackle it head on, there was no way he was going to lay down and take it.

Before testing out his new Quirk, Ash tried to explore more of the interface but came up short. He was particularly interested in the Temporal Units. The Ouroboros interface showed that he had 60 of those units ready to be used. He didn't know what for though. Clicking on the tab beared zero fruits. So he decided to simply leave the units for later. The only conclusion he came to was that each unit was 10 points.

Ash swallowed, knowing he was stalling. All he had to do was swipe away the interface before him, turn on his quirk and hopefully manage a stumbling ran towards the perimeter line and into safety. Yet, he knew it wasn't that simple. He had power now. Power that demanded to be used by virtue of it's existence. Plus there was a lot more going on below his calm facade.

The danger that Ash was actually facing was more than he allowed his mind to think of. To put things into perspective, Ash knew of a very scary outcome to the ongoing fight than was ideal.

There was the loop where, Kaecilious hadn't killed Captain America before the the World Council had sent a nuke to destroy Manhattan. Ash had recognized the bloom of the explosion, devouring everything in its path. What a terrifying picture that had painted.

Taking into account that that hadn't happened before, two options made the most sense. One, the temporal energy produced by the time loops was having an effect on each successive timeline. This led to branching off realities which meant he was actually shuffling through alternate universes and not the original timeline as he had thought.

The less likely scenario was that the energy was shifting things on a quantum level and making changes to the original timeline without causing each loop to branch off into it's own universe.

Okay. Maybe he was a bit of a nerd. And maybe he was more than a casual Marvel fan.

Both of these options filled him with dread. He knew how devastating fucking with time could be. This could be the difference between Thanos winning leading to him Killing half of the universe or the Avengers stopping him. These thoughts had stayed in the back of his mind. Knowing he could be the reason for a catastrophic change in the future did not do well for his nerves.

One thing he was sure of however, was that he wasn't safe. There were no more re-dos or loops and the fighting was still going on. Explosions that rocked the parking lot and the skyscrapers beside him. He was out in the open and any of the...

It happened suddenly, the street to his left was bombarded with multiple explosions as Iron man weaved through the buildings to escape from the barrage of the troops of Chitauri behind him, the situation got dire once Ash saw what was behind the Chitauri gliders, a huge Leviathan floating along the streets, knocking against the buildings and destroying everything.

The road was reduced to chunks of flying stones and debris that pelted the cars parked harpazardly on the road. Which was outdone by the wave of energy beams that missed the billionaire in a metal suit. All this danger was getting too close to where Ash was.

With no other choice, the teen looked deep into himself and found a new strange muscle that he could flex. He tugged on the muscle and activated his Quirk.

Iron man did a graceful arc through the sky, the heads up display, plotting a course for him to take.

"Stark, you have one hell of a tail on you. And the direction you're taking is not any better. There is another group of Chitauri coming at you from the front."

Hawkeye informed Iron man.

"Don't sweat it bow and arrow. I'm used to overzealous paparazzi. In comparison this is a cake walk."

He drawled, turning onto his back and facing behind him. The shoulder section on his armor opened up.

"Jarvis, keep it steady."

He instructed his A.I.

"Of course Sir."

The missiles shot out towards the Chitauri. Most of them evaded the bombs. A few unlucky ones exploded into chunks of metal and Chitauri flesh, raining down onto the street. The last volley of missiles landed on the Leviathan, destroying a section of it and the Chitauri strapped to it's sides. The creature groaned and started falling to the ground.

A few Chitauri dove towards the ground to escape the onslaught from Iron man when a jagged figure dressed in a black jacket and boxers jumped onto one of the gliders.

"Excuse me Sir, but are you seeing this?"

A feed from one of the suits surveillance system showed Ash jumping onto a glider and punching off the two Chitauri on it.

Then Ash leaped off the glider and turned his left hand's fingers into sharp jagged claws, with a cry, he swiped out at the underside of a another glider that came too close to the previous one. The claws dug through the metal easily, destroying its flight components. This one too went down in a blaze of glory.

An explosion erupted from the position it fell. Ash landed on the ground, cracking the concrete pavement under his heavier and harder body. He felt... unstoppable. His skin felt stiff yet malleable. The sensation of pain was muted yet he could feel every other sensation. His upgraded strength was further elevated to the point where he felt as if he could lift a car. His brief awe at the power coursing through his body cost him however.

As one, the Chitauri gathered around begun to pepper Ash's surroundings with their energy weapons. The ground around him was covered in dust, obscuring direct sight.

"Shit."

Tony cursed, he had been so distracted by the surprise sneak attack on the Chitauri that he was too late to intervene before the strange guy had been killed!

"Jarvis how much power do we have left?"

"67% sir."

"That will have to be good enough. Cap, large scale attack eminent."

He spoke over the comms and then got ready to deploy every arsenal he had to get rid of the Chitauri that were practically swarming everywhere he looked. He felt vindictive.

Before he could do anything however, the door of a car, flew out of the dust cloud like a discuss, managing to slam onto one of the Chitauri and smacking it away. Iron man stopped in place as did every alien around.

"If you think that attack was enough to deal with me," Ash shouted.

"You have another thing coming to you."