Loki strode out onto the balcony of Stark Tower to admire the destruction as the Chitauri began to reach the city. All around he could hear sirens and screams, music to his ears. Until, of course, a loud thud behind him signalled the arrival of someone far more annoying than the army—his brother.
"Loki! Turn off the Tesseract or I'll destroy it!" Thor ordered.
"You can't," Loki sneered. "There is no stopping it. There is only the war!"
Thor gritted his teeth. "Then so be it." They ran at each other, hammer and sceptre colliding with a shower of sparks.
***
As the Quinjet flew into the city overhead, Natasha connected the comms system. "Stark, we're heading north east."
"What, did you stop for drive-thru?" he asked sarcastically. "Swing up park, I'm gonna lay 'em out for you." He swooped past the tower, seeing Thor and Loki fighting on the balcony, and banked around, sending the Chitauri on his tail zooming toward the Quinjet. A machine gun popped out of the bottom of the jet, shooting the Chitauri down.
"Sir, we have more incoming," JARVIS reported.
"Fine," Tony agreed, heading back up towards the portal. "Let's keep them occupied."
***
Clint looked out of the windscreen to the left, seeing Loki was getting the upper hand on Thor. "Nat."
She looked across, nodding. "I see them."
He banked the jet towards the Stark Tower, and Natasha aimed the machine gun at Loki, firing. Immediately, Loki fired a blast of energy at the Quinjet, sending them spiralling into the street, even as Thor tackled him to the ground.
"Hold on!" Clint shouted as the jet began to lose altitude. As Steve and Elke grabbed the overhead handles for dear life and Natasha buckled herself in beside him, he gripped the controls and pulled back as hard as he could, trying to level out their descent. Even with his considerable skills at their disposal, the impact as they made the crash landing nearly jolted their jaws out of their skulls. Immediately, he hit a button to open the ramp and the four of them scrambled out to take on the Chitauri.
And then the Leviathan arrived. With a deep, primal bellow even worse than that of the Hulk, it lurched out of the portal like some kind of flying whale. Its shadow fell over them as it passed over their heads, barely fitting in the street with its gigantic hulking mass. From either flank, dozens of Chitauri soldiers leapt off onto the skyscrapers, smashing in and firing their energy rifles.
Steve lifted a hand to his earpiece, stunned. "Stark, are you seeing this?"
"I'm seeing, still working on believing," Tony replied. "Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"
"Banner?" Steve echoed, frowning.
"Just keep me posted." Tony flew alongside the Leviathan, scanning it. "JARVIS, find me a soft spot."
***
On the balcony of the Stark Tower, Thor slammed Loki into the ground and held him there, forcing him to watch as the Chitauri rained fire down upon Manhattan. "Look at this! Look around you! You think this madness will end with your rule?"
"It's too late," Loki said, his eyes wide as he saw what he had done. "It's too late to stop it!"
"No," Thor insisted. "We can. Together."
Loki met his eyes, and for a moment, Thor almost believed he was going to change. Then a sharp blade stabbed into his gut and he staggered away, groaning. "Sentiment," Loki scoffed.
YOU ARE READING
Liberty Is Mine |2| The Liberty Saga
ActionGiven that they were still clinging on to the familiarities of the 1940s, Steve and Elke were always going to find the twenty-first century a little confusing, a little alien. But with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s experiments with the Tesseract and the arrival of...
