Manhattan, New York [2012]
–Tony Stark–
Wind buffeted his face as he struggled to keep his focus on keeping his current posture as a splayed eagle, keeping the bracelets in sight. He smiled as he heard the telltale signs of repulsors as his bracelets lit up bright red, the signature red-hot armour arriving a moment later, unfurling and then closing around him.
Snug like a bug in a rug.
A concentrated blast had him halting mid air before he blasted right back up, stopping right at the penthouse level.
"There's one other person you pissed off," He said, as he blasted Loki back into the penthouse, "His name was Phil."
God, that felt good. Just as he was contemplating going in and blasting Loki some more, he looked up as Jarvis began blaring every alarm that existed across his HUD. A beam of light, bright blue, projected in the sky, where it seemed to hit nothing before the very sky was torn apart in a horrifying spectacle, showing a deep, dark nothingness on the other side.
He only had seconds before he saw the first wave of aliens.
"Chitauri," He breathed out, as he moved on instinct, Jarvis helpfully targeting everything, cataloguing data, and sending it across every available channel, before his missiles even hit their first targets.
Despite each and every one of them hitting true and destroying their targets, he knew that it wasn't enough. It won't be enough. Even so, he continued, grunting as one of them clipped him on his shoulders, before he had to veer off course since he had run out of room.
Heaving a sigh, he winced as his shoulder moved, sending jolts of pain, as he dove right back into the fray. If anything, he knew that this was going to be a long fight. The others had an ETA in minutes, but he was not sure if he could hold them off for minutes.
"Sir, there appears to be an intruder on the scene, fighting Loki," Jarvis informed him in the middle of blasting yet another Chituari in the head. With the situation being what it was, he had chosen to ration energy, a thought he never thought would come to him because of the Arc Reactor's nature.
Also, what?
A small feed opened on his HUD, showing a view of a camera from a drone, showing two figures grappling with each other, flashes of blue erupting as Loki probably used that damned sceptre of his.
"All electronics on the penthouse level have been knocked down by a possible EMP. Drone feed coming online," Jarvis informed him as he punched yet another hole in the head of a Chitauri, bringing down a chariot that then crashed into another one, taking down two for the price of a single shot.
The feed moved before another, much closer appeared in front of him, showing a masked man, dressed in a black tank top and pants, fighting Loki of all people. Loki was tougher than he had expected. He should have hit him at full tilt if he was just going to be up and running in minutes after that.
"Jarvis, keep me updated, will you? Also, inform that man about the sceptre's mind control. We don't need a Mini Hulk under Loki's thrall," He said as he moved after the Chitauri closest to the densest population areas, as he saw the holes being punched into the floor from the video.
Whoever this person was, they were a powerhouse, and Loki was somehow not landing a single blow on him.
He could not tell if it was by Loki's design or if the man was just that good.
___xx___
–Alex Warner–
He grunted as yet another punch landed on seemingly thin air, hitting Loki's sceptre as his twisted, angry face was visible for a split second, as Loki was pushed back from the force of his blow, turning invisible a moment later.
He closed his eyes at that and sighed in frustration, turning around and punching low at a straight angle. Hitting that sceptre, once again, was frustrating as Loki was pushed back by his punch but took no damage.
As long as his punches did not land, it would not matter how hard he could hit. He certainly could not hit as hard as the Hulk or anywhere hard enough to break through that sceptre. He needed–
His neck moved to the side as the tip of the sceptre passed where his head had been a moment ago. Blood ran down the small cut the sceptre made on the side of his head, as his elbow finally found purchase in Loki's torso, a satisfying spurt of blood exiting the man-no-God was folded in half as he reached out and yanked the sceptre out of the man's hands.
He nodded in satisfaction at his success, as it would close the portal, as Loki recovered and jumped at him. Obviously, he was not stupid enough to play it cautiously, since he had what he needed. So with a well timed burst of chakra, he punched the ground, creating a small explosion as Loki was peppered with stray tiles, while he jumped back.
All in a bid to close the portal before it could do any real damage. It had already been minutes since he climbed the tower and fought Loki, since elevators did not mesh well with his powers.
Apparently, his lightning nature was just too darn strong for it to be used without disrupting electronics nearby. A light flickering or a phone not working was fine, but being stuck in an elevator was a bad experience, no matter how much chakra one had.
"Now," He smiled as he looked at Loki, lying on the ground, blood pouring out of the small wounds, and then aimed the sceptre at him in a mocking gesture, "Let's get you–"
His chakra screamed at him, his senses moving in overdrive, as he managed to turn his head the slightest, seeing a blur of red, silver and white hit him with the equivalent of a train, blasting him off the floor and into the nearest wall, through it, and into another one, his back lighting up in pain like a bunch of fireworks on 4th of July.
Dropping on the ground, he immediately moved to the basics. Flooding chakra to his body, he recognised the immediate damage and to his relief, aside from cuts, bruised ribs, a dislocated shoulder from the point of impact, and the telltale signs of a concussion, there was nothing majorly damaged.
His hands flexed as they turned up empty.
He groaned out loud at that, "Ofcourse. It couldn't be easy for little ol' Alex,"
The ringing of his ears and the shaky vision cleared up after a minute or so, as he stood up, now assured that he would not inadvertently walk off the building and plummet to his death.
Very embarrassing, that would be.
He giggled as the voice of Yoda came into his mind.
God, he was badly concussed.
With a pained grunt, he pushed the dislocated shoulder back to where it was supposed to be, the haziness of his mind clearing up with a sobering dose of pain, as he stood up, chakra doing its thing and helping him ignore any other injuries.
"Aw, Man!" And of course, by the time he had recovered enough to stand again after being bashed into near oblivion by Mister Punch First Ask Later, Loki and the scepter, both were gone.
All that effort, crawling up the entire building, duking it out with Loki, risking having his mind itself taken from his control, for what? A concussion.
He shook his head, and jumped to the top, taking Selwig in his hands, and just walked off the building. Running parallel to a glass tower was a scary thing, as he ran towards the ground. He knew what was needed to close the portal. He just had to get it. No need to risk Selwig's life for that.
As he jumped, reorienting himself, and touched the ground, he began running towards the Park, noting the lack of any people nearby, which was nice.
Midway through, he heard a roar, followed by the sound of metal being shorn off and then the sound of an explosion.
"Guess the Hulk was back in town, then," He muttered to himself as he ran at speeds no human could ever reach, even Super Soldiers like Captain America. Using chakra to make sure he had the grip, he ran full tilt, reaching a crowd within a minute, digging grooves into the ground with how hard he was gripping it.
He made a good bootleg Spider-Man, using chakra to stick to stuff, and also create small explosive impacts at the point of contact. If only he could figure out how to walk on air.
Midway through, he looked at his reflection and found himself looking at a pair of purple eyes, with everything else covered up, before he was running again.
___xx___
Jumping on top of yet another Chitauri, he suppressed the grimace that threatened to come out because of all the gross liquid staining his pants and shoes. Getting off the crushed Chitauri, he quickly pilfered his weapons before shooting his comrades.
Once those three were dead, he looked up as those chariots came into view, going somewhere in a group. So far, he had only seen Iron Man and that asshole Thor. NO signs of Loki anywhere.
His hand shot out, grabbing a piece of concrete with rebar stuck in it and hurling it at the incoming wave, destroying two, drawing a satisfied smile from him. His smile dimmed as he realised they were ignoring him and the death of their comrades, though that was nothing new, as they flew towards their destination.
That irked him as he jumped from his spot, chakra reinforced legs coupled with a small explosive impact at the base of his feet using the repulsive properties of too much chakra meant he reached the chariots flying high very easily.
Punching a hole through the chariot, he winced as he felt himself getting shocked as a purple orb, which was likely the power core, hovered dangerously near his fingers. Sucking in a breath, he realised how close he had come to having his hand blown off, he used his other hand to jump up and mimicking Romanoff's manoeuvre of piloting them, he jabbed his thumbs and made it crash into another one of his comrades, creating a nice explosion in the sky.
Meanwhile, he had already jumped to his next target, in a bid to both thin the herd and also see where they were going.
His eyes widened as he saw what was happening and where these Chitauri were headed.
It was almost happening in slow motion as well. Seeing Widow, Barton and Captain fighting off yet another horde whilst shielding a bus made him stab into the neck of the Chitauri he was currently piloting, as he jumped from chariot to chariot, using chakra to blow off the metal at any point of contact, leaving behind an explosion mid air, as he landed on the back of a Chitauri sneaking closer, crushing it beneath him with another timed explosive impact because of chakra.
Not bad for an ability that was mostly ignored in favour of sticking their body to an object. Since this world had no chakra, that he knew of, he could use that with impunity, using the excess chakra to create repulsion from any point in his body. Overcharging that chakra flow created his primary offensive capability.
"Hi!" He smiled and waved cheerfully at the wary trio, as Cap raised his shield towards him. Raising his hands in surrender, "Hey! Whoa! I am here to help."
Seeing Cap lower his shield, he continued, "So, this is horrible, and I know it sounds suspicious but I need Loki's sceptre."
And there came the guard back up again.
"Well, not me specifically, although that would be pretty sweet," The tensing increased. He smirked internally as he continued, "We," he gestured at all of them, "Need the sceptre to end this. I rescued Dr.Selwig from Stark Tower earlier and he told me that the sceptre's energy source matched that of the Cube. It can be used to close that portal. So, who's with me?" No need to tell them about his very spotty knowledge of the timeline here. Hell, the only reason he was here in the city was because he knew something very important and bad happened in 2012.
It was as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to his knowledge of this timeline and dropped him here, with a ton of holes in his knowledge, which was probably not far from the truth. Fucking ROBs, man.
Confusingly, the wariness in their body language remained.
"How do you know that?" Romanoff asked him, but before any further questions, answers to which he could not give, could be asked, someone spoke to them all at once as their hands went to their ears.
Well, whatever it was, judging by their faces, it could not be good. Before he could ask them about it, he heard roars from all around him. They were from those big lizard things, only this time, they were overlapping, as in multiple of them were roaring at the same time.
He looked up, and his shoulders slumped as he saw three of them exiting that hellhole at the same time. "Aw, man. How are we supposed to deal with that?"
"Loki is fighting Thor, near the Tower," Barton said.
"Again?" He raised his hands up as he jumped from his spot, cratering it. Using a very Hulk-like strategy, he just jumped from building to building, maximising chakra output and speed by not caring about property damage. Just blasting holes in the side of the building when jumping and punching holes in the building when grabbing.
Turns out, Concrete? Pretty good for getting a proper grip.
All in all, not a good day for all the Commercial Real Estate holders of New York. Eh, they'll live