Inside the SHIELD Helicarrier, alarms flared to life, bathing the command center in flashing red light. Technicians rushed between stations, fingers dancing over keyboards as holographic screens blinked into view with cascading data. At the center of it all, Nick Fury entered with urgency, his single eye narrowing as he absorbed the chaos around him.
"Talk to me," Fury barked, voice slicing through the noise like a blade.
Maria Hill approached with quick, firm steps, her arms crossed and expression sharp. "We just intercepted a transmission. Highly encrypted. Origin point traces back to the upper atmosphere. It piggybacked off one of our surveillance satellites."
Fury's brow lowered. "Signature?"
Hill nodded grimly. "It matches Loki. Same energy trace we saw back in Stuttgart."
Fury muttered under his breath, turning to the holographic table now displaying a rotating pulse of blue light. "He's broadcasting wide?"
"To every global defense grid," Hill confirmed. "Beijing, Berlin, Wakanda, London... everyone saw it."
Fury's jaw tightened. "Get me Stark. Now. And put eyes on Manhattan. Every rooftop, every tower."
Across the city, perched atop a communications tower cloaked in fog, Alexander stood with his coat billowing in the wind. The shadows around his body curled restlessly, feeding off the tension in the air. His eyes were locked skyward, tracking the faint pulsing signal flickering above the clouds.
He could feel it—not in his ears, but in his mind. The encrypted signal didn't speak words, but it pressed against his consciousness with calculated force. The static held a rhythm, and buried within was something unmistakable.
Loki.
Alexander's fists clenched. It wasn't a message. It was a declaration. A challenge. A summons.
The invasion was no longer coming. It had already begun.
The shadows twisted tighter around his limbs, armor forming reflexively as his instincts prepared for the worst. He didn't know when the first wave would hit, but the air felt electric—charged with the scent of war.
Below, the city buzzed with sudden urgency. Sirens wailed in the distance. Police convoys snaked through intersections with lights flashing. SHIELD agents in plain clothes moved into position across rooftops and alleys. Civilians stopped in the street to look skyward, sensing something they couldn't explain.
In his earpiece, Tony Stark's voice broke through.
"Alexander, you're gonna want to hear this. JARVIS picked up a massive energy spike—Stark Tower. It's coming from the arc reactor core."
Alexander turned slightly, eyes narrowing.
"Loki?"
"He's there," Tony confirmed. "And he's not alone."
"Meet me there," Alexander said.
"I thought you liked working alone," Tony replied with a half-chuckle.
"I do," Alexander said coolly. "But this isn't about me. We stop him now, or this city burns."
Across town, Natasha Romanoff crouched behind the ledge of a rooftop overlooking Stark Tower. Through binoculars, she zoomed in on the gleaming arc reactor near the tower's peak.
"There's movement at the base of the tower," she whispered. "SHIELD recon confirms Loki is inside."
Her earpiece crackled. Fury's voice came through, calm but clipped.
"Let him go in. We monitor from a distance. If Alexander's serious about helping, we'll see it soon enough."
Natasha lowered her binoculars, expression tight. "He's already on the move."
Back at the communications tower, Alexander took one last breath. He stepped into the air—and fell.
But before he could strike the rooftop below, a surge of shadow caught him, sweeping his body forward in a silent glide. He streaked through the city like a phantom, leaping across buildings, invisible to the ordinary eye.
Just as he neared Stark Tower, the arc reactor pulsed.
A burst of blue light shot skyward.
The clouds parted.
And in the sky above Manhattan—
A portal began to open.
End of Chapter 73
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