CHAPTER ONE

2012, New York

It was just another regular, sunny day in New York. Streets teemed with people running to work and tourists wandering around. In a small café, seated beside the large window, a brunette girl was calmly sipping her coffee. It was her free day from work; she worked as a nurse in the pediatric department at New York Community Hospital. Everything felt quiet from the outside, or at least as quiet as New York could be, but the girl felt something was just not right, it was like a tingling in her nuke telling her something was going to happen. The tingling quickly became a sharp pain and she dropped her coffee, and ran her hands to her head, holding it tightly.

The waitress, alarmed, ran towards her and placed a hand on her shoulder in worry.

"Hey, are you alright? Miss?" she kept calling for the girl, but she just remained silent, head in her hands, greeting her teeth. The waitress pulled out of her and went grabbing her phone on the counter. She just started typing the numbers to call an ambulance, when hell broke loose.

Initially, it felt like an earthquake, everything shook, sending glasses and bottles flying on the ground. The brunette had fallen on the ground as well, still holding her head, that now was pounding, eyes shut in pain. She was concentrating, trying to calm the pain, and she was just about to try and stand up, when a long sharp screech pierced her head, sending her crumbling on the floor again.

People ran at the window and looked up, trying to catch what was happening. Right above Stark Tower, the sky tore open revealing a huge dark wormhole. Everyone was staring at it in bewilderment, scared and fascinated at the same time. But then, everyone was torn away from the state of amazement when things started to come out of it, raining down on the city.

Meanwhile people started running out of the café on the street, the girl was still laying on the floor. She felt like her head was going to explode, due to all those noises. People's screams thumbed in her ears, along with the sound of their steps on the ground, their breaths and their pounding hearts, while the screech still echoed in the background. After a while, she started to concentrate on her own heartbeat, trying to let every other sound out. Slowly, the pain started to fade and let place to the initial tingling sensation in the back of the neck. She opened her eyes and rose up slowly, using the table as support to get up. Once on her feet, she tried to focus on what was happening on the outside, cocking her ears.

She heard people running and screaming in fear, crying; she ignored them and focused on the other sounds. Tyres screeching, horns, broken glass, a barking dog. She ignored them too. Then she heard a new sound, some kind of animal noise, completely unknown to her, and some kind of metallic sound, like people fighting in armors, and one that sounded like a shot. She focused on the nearest source of these sounds, analyzing it. It was walking on two feet, like a human, but its heartbeat was completely different from a human's one, a lot more weak and slow.

It started to walk closer to the bar, the sound of his footsteps more and more loud and clear. The girl quickly stood down, reached the closest table and hid underneath it. The thing was now standing next to the window, and the girl held her breath, scared that it might sense her through the glass. But after a moment, it began walking again, and she could breathe again.

What the hell are those things? She thought, and then she tried to concentrate on a small group of people talking some floors above her head. She managed to pick some strays of the conversation. Wormhole, things falling from the sky, aliens, Iron Man.

Really? An alien invasion? Am I in some sci-fi movie? It all sounded unreal.

"Maybe you should get your ass out there and do something." She leaned her head back on the wall, trying to ignore the annoying man's voice.

"You can't ignore me, sweetheart, I'm in your head. Actually, it's your own mind that's speaking to you with his voice." She growled. "You can't just stay here without doing moving a finger, you know you can help."

"How?" She asked loudly. "I'm not a superhero. Plus, Iron Man's already taking care of it."

A sarcastic laugh echoed in the room. "Oh, yeah, because Iron Man's perfectly capable of containing an alien invasion."

She scoffed. "SHIELD will be on it."

She heard him sigh and felt him seating beside her. She could feel his arm brushing against hers. It's not real.

"You're right, I'm not real. But you think I would've said something different? You think I would've just hidden here and done nothing?" she shook her head in response, biting her lip.

"I just… I'm tired, Greg. I told Fury I was done fighting, and I really mean it, I can't take it any longer. Not anymore." She took a deep breath. "Not without you."

He sighed again and moved closer that she could feel his breath brushing on her ear. "I know, and I'm sorry, I really am. If I had a choice, I would've never left you, you know that, but now you need to move forward. You're not finished fighting, Aria. The world's not finished with you." She heard him stand up on his feet and take some steps from her. "I know you'll choose to do the right thing."

Arianna closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Damn Greg. She stood up quickly and reached her backpack that was laying abandoned on the ground. She could sense Greg smirking right behind her.

She opened the backpack and pulled out an old red scarf that she used to carry around for windy days, she put it on her eyes and tied it on the back of her head, so that now it was covering the upper half of her face.

"Now you really look like a superhero. Who are you, scarf-girl?" she ignored him and reached back into the backpack, pulling out a long metallic cylinder. She weighed it in her hands, taking confidence with the object. It felt just natural to handle it.

"You know, for someone who's done fighting, you look pretty well arranged."

"Shut up, Greg." He laughed in response.

The girl took a deep breath and, holding tightly onto the staff, stepped out of the café. There was total chaos, it took her a moment to regain control of her sense, overwhelmed by a combination of loud noises and smell of dust and blood. She recomposed herself quickly, head clear and body on the alert.

She felt the air shift on her left and quickly raised the staff, stopping an attack from an alien. The contact with the creature's armor generated a loud metallic clang. Arianna ignored the disturbing noise and acted quickly, throwing a kick in its chest and hitting hard on his head with the staff. The alien fell unconsciously on the ground.

Arianna started walking down the street, following the sound of the main battle. It seemed to come from Stark Tower's direction. She started to jog towards it, careful not to step onto anything.

She felt the heat coming from behind her and crouched, dodging the shot. She didn't hesitate and ran towards the alien, dodging another shot at her side, and raised her staff, hitting hard the alien where he was holding the strange gun. It lost the grip on hit, but it didn't distract him and started to attack her. She managed to avoid most of the attacks, moving swiftly. She blocked a punch directed to her face with her right hand while, with the left, she raised the staff and knock him on the face, sending him stumbling back. She didn't let him the chance to recover and attacked him. She raised the staff again, this time she pressed a little button at the center, and two identical blades sprang out of each end of the staff. Arianna jumped, the double-bladed sword raised up, and with a fluid move cut off his head, landing on her knee.

She got back on walking towards Stark Tower, killing every alien that came in her path with few quick moves. They were extremely slow and clumsy compared to her.

A sudden explosion roared not far from the girl, forcing her to cover her ears in pain, deafened for a moment. She shook her head furiously, trying to regain control of her senses, and finally starting to run towards the source of the explosion. People were running past her, screaming both in pain and terror. Arianna had to stay extremely focused to not let the racket disrupt her.

"I need men in these buildings. There are people inside that can run into the line of fire. You take them through the basement or through the subway. You keep them off the streets. I need a perimeter as far as 39th." A man's voice echoed not more than twenty feet from her, giving orders. Arianna focused on the man's heartbeat, noticing how inhumanly fast it was racing.

"Why the hell should I take orders from you?" another man argued.

Arianna's head snapped in their direction, the moment after she was running towards the men. When she was a foot away from the first man, he started to turn around, but the girl had been quicker and had launched herself on him, striking him down. An energy blast hitting the spot where he was standing seconds before. Arianna hit her right elbow in the fall, sending a sharp pain through her arm. She ignored the pain and quickly came back on her feet, then turning to face the other two men standing there. Their hearts were pounding in fear, of her or the explosion she couldn't say.

"Do as he said."

One of them spoke, giving orders to the other. "I need men in those buildings, lead the people down and away from the streets. I need a perimeter as far back as 39th." They were policemen, she stated.

The other man nodded furiously and started jogging towards the building.

"Thank you." A deep voice from behind her. The man she just saved.

She faced him and gave him a small nod and a polite smile. "You're welcome."

In that moment, an alien came from her left, the man opened his mouth and moved a step forward, but she was again quicker and, with a swift move, stabbed him with her sword. She then turned around and started to make her way through the street, but he called for her.

"Wait!" She stopped, her back to him. "Who are you?"

She stayed in silence for some seconds, thinking, then answered simply. "An ally."

The Captain watched as she made her way through the battle since he lost sight of her figure.