The day was just beginning in the city that never sleeps; all was still and washed in white as the sun spread across the skyline. Through the haze a figure could be distinguished, stood on the tower and gripping a sceptre with the same glint as the smile which was creeping across his face. It was not a smile of delight, although there was a dark twist of happiness somewhere within the sinister depths of his mind. It was more of a manic expression: one which made his face stretch and contort into something which could only exist inside the nightmares of a child, or a craftsman of such thoughts. His heart was a void and his soul a valley: this man was not human, but a god. From his world he had travelled; a divine land of grandeur, power and wealth. Those who would buy spaceships to travel the universe on a quest for heaven would find it here. Indeed, he saw no reason for why the mortals would reject his offer of such a land, especially when his troops would do all the work for them. He had been heir to the throne for so long that he had lost all understanding that he would never be his mother or his father, and now his time had come. No longer would he walk alone along the empty street of failure on a planet where his family ruled the sun. For as the race progressed, he came to understand that the more the great ball of fire orbited above him, the longer his shadow grew. A contorted black reflection of his own intrusive thoughts had been following him incessantly, draining him of his weaknesses and doubts to prepare him for this moment. He raised the sceptre to the heavens, and from it erupted a blinding beam of light which pierced the sky, causing the clouds surrounding it to fluctuate and morph like a puddle-sized ocean, stretching until the ray tore through the atmosphere to reveal a desolate region of space beyond. The sky darkened; within the void an army awoke. Robotic lights flickered as the brightness stimulated consciousness inside their metal skulls. Like new-born babies they inspected their surroundings, testing out their newly-formed limbs until their minds were wiped and their function set to destroy. The drones shunted forwards towards the mysterious source of life, breaking through the electric force field and descending into the city. The electric white ring dividing the darkness from the light was constantly expanding and contracting as the two skies battled for dominance. Electricity crackled causing sparks, bursts and explosions to erupt from the glowing vortex. The darkness of the universe started to seep through, making the sky bleed and turning the white loop into a brilliant fusion of azure, sapphire and navy. This hurricane of liquid fire and the alien troops dispersing from it were the first and last things many citizens saw that day. Alas, the battle had already begun. Robots flooded the city, using human weapons with alien hands before they smashed to the ground as a thousand metal pieces. Mass panic consumed the humans: those too filled with terror to go outside were praying to beings which few believed in; those who had attempted escape were fleeing desperately, dodging the weaponry and polluting the air with their shrieks. Gunfire reverberated around buildings, illuminated by lasers and silenced by bombs. The police arrived with no hope and the sirens started screaming - everyone was screaming now. Smoke billowed around the hem of Death's singed cloak as he collected his victims, surrounded by flames. Buildings collapsed. Statues disintegrated. And the ground lay littered with bodies and rubble. So many were already gone, but this was merely one city: maybe worth a planet to its citizens, but not the invaders. All were to be eliminated. Out of the vortex a colossal spaceship began to emerge: a metallic-looking monster which would have resembled a shark with its huge jagged teeth had it not been fastened with vast wings and a long winding tail which made it more comparable to a dragon. It was made more intimidating by its skeletal frame: this clearly was not a vessel which had been designed to impress, but rather horrify. With great force, it fired enormous missiles at the already smoking infrastructure, crashing through buildings as it sailed through the air. The god smiled in quiet victory. He would later regret such feelings of accomplishment, when he realised that his 'all-seeing eyes' were just ordinary, but with anything he didn't want to see filtered out by his delusion of power. Although he was looking at destruction all around him, he failed to see that an increasing number of the corpses hadn't had beating hearts in the first place... The more he focussed, the more of his army he saw scattered across the ground, and the more aware he became of the six pairs of footsteps approaching from all directions towards the area below. The steps of a humane monster, an iron hero, a thunder god, a nation's solider, a trained assassin and a skilled archer were advancing. They left behind a trail of devastation which left the citizens awestruck, and were smiling as they started sprinting towards the metal monster in front of them. Faith rose as silence fell but for two words, resonating from their earpieces. 'Avengers assemble.'