Unexpected

Finding Loki

The heat from the blast hit my face immediately as I ducked, still watching the cloud of flames. Ignoring the sunburnt feeling of my face I cupped my hands over my ears as I collapsed down the stairs trying to avoid the explosion I had set off, trying to block out the thundering boom. To my horror a Chitauri arm flew over my head and thwacked against the other side of the subway stairs. It had been completely blown off from its body and was now sitting there, partially smoldering.

I wanted to scream as it landed, but thought better of it. Moving my hands away from my ears I waited a few seconds, straining to hear if there were any survivors. My face burned and I gingerly moved my dirty fingers over my forehead just to assure myself that my eyebrows were still there. They were. I heard nothing from above. Taking up the gun I had apparently dropped, I silently scooted up the steps until I could peek over the cement to see what was left of the Chitauri.

It was a massacre. That was plain enough. Black soot coated everything, metal was mangled here and there, the ripped up, demolished remains of cars, all blazing with little piles of flame. There were a few undistinguishable piles of charcoaled flesh that I assumed had being my extraterrestrial enemies. Nothing had been left alive. It was a sickening sight that made my stomach squeeze again. My body wanted to upchuck, but it couldn't. I was empty and all I could do was bend over and cough. I was horrified by the massive damage I had wrought. I had done that, all of this, this was my destruction... I really felt sick.

When still nothing moved, I let the gun drop to my side, tired of holding it up. Actually, I was tired of all of this. The Invasion. The fighting. The confusion. Having my heart and mind twisted and pulled until I was a bundle of nerves and unanswered questions and emotions. I was just plain tired. I couldn't stop however. I'd helped those few escape becoming victims. Not the thin, panicked woman, though. She had died. But old Ernie, the mother with her infant, Peter, the couple that held each other, and the guy who seemed so familiar, they were alive and I hoped they were well, now I had to stop this war. I had to find Loki. Now.

One of the Chitauri that had been shot down at some point in our fight and had escaped my makeshift bomb had been kind enough to let his hovercraft fall on him as he fell from the sky and hence had saved it from damage beyond an indent on its underside. This put me in the lovely position of having a new ride. Picking it up it came alive, hovering and ready to go. Getting on it, I maneuvered the craft upwards to see where I was. I was farther from the center of the fight than I wanted to be. Loki would have to be in there in the fray somewhere. Pushing the craft forward I zoomed towards the mess, trying to figure out what had happened while I'd been out of the picture. Off on my right I saw one of the giant flying eels was making its way through the buildings of the city, a green speck that I assumed to be the Hulk was jumping around on it, apparently causing it quite a bit of trouble when a red dot that I figured was Thor was also there and with a flash of white light the eel gave a wrenching wail and started falling from the sky, plowing into the street beneath it. I couldn't see any of the others on the team, but I assumed things were going just as well for them as for Hulk and Thor. However well they were doing though, the battle did not seem to be coming to a close, and it wouldn't, I knew, until the scepter had been used to close the wormhole where new alien recruits were constantly flowing out into our world.

Pushing the craft to go as fast as it could I shot through the sky toward the center of the chaos, trying to ignore the carnage and focus on finding Loki. Taking a sharp turn in an attempt to avoid a platoon or whatever you call it of Chitauri from spotting me, I flew down an empty street way when with a huge crash a bank building beside me exploded sending bricks flying at me, and to my great surprise, out flew a star-spangled man! Captain America! As I struggled to turn around I saw him land full body on a car. A handful of policemen came out of the building with a large group of people who had apparently been hiding inside before the explosion. One, in his panic, lifted his pistol and shot at me.