"I tell you what true believers, it is getting extremely insane out there. I don't even know if you can hear my voice, or see my mug. But this is Stan on the Street, bringing you the chaotic scene between the Invaders known as the Skrulls and the Avengers."
An elderly man with white hair climbed over the debris and dodged the Hulk flying over his head. Stan on the Street looked around and saw the chaos breed around him.
"This is unbelievable, if you can believe it!" Stan yelled at the top of his lungs. "And there goes Iron Man, man he can't catch a break."
"Hey, Stan, you better move," Iron Man said and he got back to his feet.
"I tell you, this is chaos, this is anarchy, this is just the marvelous mayhem that you can expect, and I tell you, I wouldn't want to be Damage Control after this one," Stan said and he looked to be short of breath. "I tell you, it's so exciting that I'm going to have a heart out here."
Stan slid down a piles of debris and very nearly avoided Thor smacking down one of the enemies out of the corner of his eye.
"I tell you, a guy could get smashed out here," Stan said, folding his arms over his chest. "But you know what, I'll be here as long as I can. Let's just hope this is one of those things that we can just laugh at tomorrow and realize, hey, what a day."
He could see two of them go down next to him.
"Man, that's going to hurt after tomorrow," Stan said and he ran out of the way.
"Hey old timer, one side," Hawkeye said.
"Stan, long time no see," Captain America said and he swung the shield at his enemy's face.
"I tell you, there might be one of the only men alive who remembers this guy from back in the day," Stan said and he winced, nearly getting shoved out of the way.
He flew head over heels, ass over tea kettle and landed on the ground with a hard thud. Stan lifted his head up and started to cough.
"I tell you what, a person could get killed out here, if they're not careful, and if you're still watching, have a good one," Stan said and he nearly collapsed down to the ground.
He was really getting too old for this to be honest.
"Anyway, this is Stan on the Street, and until next time, EXCELSIOR!"
Harry Potter willingly walked into many traps during his time. Many would question his sanity and he might be right next to them in questioning that lack of sanity. That being said, he was ready for this battle.
He just didn't know if he was going to walk out of this one with his mind intact. His hand opened and closed, and Spider-Girl and Flamebird followed him inside.
"They do realize that the invasion is over, and we've won, right?" Flamebird asked him.
Spider-Girl answered that question with a sigh. "They're going to be persistent to the end. They always are."
"I don't even know why they keep trying, it's not like they have the doomsday device or they're going to get it any time soon," the hero with no codename said.
Gwen and Kara exchanged a gaze with each other. Perhaps it was their own overactive imaginations but they felt that Harry might just have something up his sleeve regarding that device.
"I hope that I never have to use it, because that kind of power is dangerous even in the hands of the most noble of hands."
Questions about how Harry breached the temple and got the device after failing earlier would have to wait. Both girls knew that he had connections all over the world through the society that they were all apart.
"Okay, let's go," Kara suggested.
They saw the Queen of the Skrulls holding court.
"Well, she has potential, even if she needs to learn her place," Gwen commented with a smile. "Let's say we take out her goons and worry about how much that is now."
The Queen of the Skrulls stood above her battered followers.
"I don't understand how you could fail this mission so bad, one of you must have let him in on our plans," The Skrull Queen whispered, her voice sounding extremely ragged when he spoke. She had been through a lot and dealing with human politicians made her just want to decimate the entire planet.
She reminded herself of the prophecy, this planet was hers by divine right and nothing would stop her from holding it in the palm of her hand. The Skrull Queen's gaze penetrated her so called loyal followers.
"I couldn't have done such a thing without you, but yet, I couldn't have failed without you as well," the Skrull Queen whispered. "You will get this planet."
"There's just one problem, the planet belongs to me, Veranke."
The woman turned around and she saw him standing there.
"So, you think that you can deny us our right to hold a world of our own in our hands," Veranke whispered and the harshness flashed through here voice.
"I don't think that I can," Harry said and he paused. "I know that I will."
The Skrulls looked to attack but the few that escaped the battle with the Avengers and SHIELD looked really ragged.
"The thing about prophecy is that it's up to a great deal of interpretation," Harry said with a smile on his face.
Kara chimed in helpfully. "That's my husband's politically correct way of saying that you're nuts and anyone who thinks that they're entitled anything despite fortune telling is full of bunk."
"I don't think you understand how the order of things work," Harry replied with a smile. "I didn't fight some little snot nosed bitch with daddy issues to concede what I've accomplished to a bunch of glorified space lizards. The moment that you stepped onto this world, you ceded control over the Skrulls to me."
The Queen of the Skrulls looked at him and rage flashed through her eyes. "What are you trying to say to me?"
"Oh, you don't know?" Harry asked her. "Let me spell it out for you carefully, so there's no doubt whatsoever. "
The remaining Skrulls closed ranks behind the two of them, when suddenly one of them blasted the Skrull in the knee caps and dropped them down to the ground.
"You know, that trick never gets old, and I mean that," Nym commented and the Skrulls rumbled down the stairs.
Nym flashed in front of them and the doors burst open.
"So, are we too late to the party? "Iron Man asked and he raised his arm cannon.
"You made a grave mistake coming here, Anthony Stark," Veranke whispered with a wicked grin.
"Oh, full name ultimatum, that's got to hurt," Hawkeye replied.
"You only have one choice, kneel before your new lord and master," Flamebird said and she pointed at the Skrull Queen.
The Skrull Queen looked at her followers, but all of them dropped down to the ground. Now that the Avengers were here.
"Super Skrull to me!" the Skrull Queen yelled.
"Really, she just said that?" Spider-Girl asked and she saw a Super Skrull about fifteen feet tall walk towards them. "And why did they use giant DNA? No actually, now did they use giant DNA? That's the question…."
"Just take them out like the rest," Harry replied to her.
Spider-Girl nodded and she had the antidote ready, in case the Skrulls had any more of these super skrulls.
Nym tried to go for the Skrull Queen but a force field wrapped around her. She bounced down the steps and flipped onto her feet.
"Okay, let's try that again," Nym whispered.
Carol joined the party and distracted the giant Super Skrull. The Skrull grabbed at her. She avoided its huge paw like hands from crushing her.
She landed a huge punch and dropped it down to one knee. The haymaker knocked the wind completely out of it. Another punch and it dropped down to a knee again. She fired another punch.
"Stand back!"
The antidote launched between it's shoulder blades and dropped it down to the ground.
Harry saw the energy field around the Skrull Queen. He thought that it was annoying to have to breach such a thing but he did what he had to do. He brought down his hands on the field and blasted it open.
The Skrull Queen looked incensed and she tried to activate it.
"We'll see how good your technology is when I cripple it," she said.
"Actually, we've already dealt with that today," Harry said, and he made his way up the steps.
Kara back handed one of the Skrulls and there were more signs of fighting around them. The Skrulls were restraint and put down. Some of they had training but they were failing.
"And there was only one," Harry said to the Skrull Queen. His gaze penetrated hers.
She took a step back, the imposing figure of Harry Potter hovered over her. She couldn't really stand up to him.
"We can't lose, this planet was ours by right of conquest," the Skrull Queen whispered and she looked to be seconds away from throwing a temper tantrum to end all temper tantrums.
Harry restrained her and she fell to the ground, in shock.
"Your plan was perfect, wasn't it?" Harry asked and she nodded. "But it didn't work."
The Skrull Queen looked furious, the right of conquest blew up in face. She couldn't believe this, she didn't want to believe this.
"Don't worry, most of the most perfect plans don't even work," Harry told her and he stared at her. "Those who think their plan's are foolproof are proven to be the fools. Twenty years…."
"Twenty five," she said, and she felt the salt rubbed into her wounds.
She couldn't get out of these restraints if she wanted to.
"A long time has passed since the moment you've put yourselves in that spot," Harry commented when he looked at the Skrull Queen. "I want you to take a good and long look at what you condemned your followers to."
"Earth will never be able to hold them," she whispered, trying to get some sense of being upright. This was a battle that she wasn't going to win though.
"Hmm, maybe they won't," Harry agreed, but he said this in an attempt to be patronizing. "No more than you can hold the Earth."
Harry saw Nick Fury waiting for him. He gave him the most obvious he'll talk to him later kind of look.
"Half of the Ministry got blown up, you realize that don't you," Nym said to Harry.
"Yes, but that's the least of the property damage that it caused," Harry said and he held up the Skrull Queen.
"Why do people think that they can get the better of you, anyway?" Kara asked.
Harry frowned. "It's been known to happen before."
"But rare occasions, it seems like there are people even more arrogant than you are on your worst day," Kara said and she saw by the adoring gaze in Harry's eyes that he took that as a compliment.
"The two of you have a strange dynamic, you know that," Carol said and she was pulled between the two.
"I know, and now you share it," Harry told Carol with a smile.
Carol smiled, she could get used to this. She wondered what happened to the Skrulls.
"Oh, this might be out of our jurisdiction, but there are other people who will have that happy opportunity," Harry informed his wife, pretty much saying that the Skrulls might have a really tough time with it.
The Skrull Queen remained on her knees, and knew that she was in a great deal of trouble.
"I guess you do kneel before him after all."
Harry thought about the legacy of what the magical world was. The thing was, there was other magical societies around the world. They didn't want anything to do with what was considered to be the ICW countries.
Not to mention they practiced differing methods of magic. So it would be with two different worlds.
Even more than the two worlds that the magical and mundane world were in. Even though the line was far more blurred than ever before and Harry would be a fool if he thought that they could stay hidden forever.
People might understand, they might not. All it took was the wrong person to raise a stink that they shouldn't and all of them would lose their mind. It was that follow the leader mentality that got Harry on the wrong side of popular opinion more times than he cared to count.
"The Ministry finally resembles what it truly is on a functionality state," Nym replied. She could see the damage through the Ministry and a lot of Ministry officials had been missing. "So, what is the status of the people that have been missing?"
"Hopefully we'll find out soon, and hopefully they'll tell us," Harry said. "Some of those people have been missing for about twenty years, some much sooner. But still, that's got to be jarring for the families involved."
"The longer they've been missing, the least likely they are to be alive," Nym replied in her most somber voice.
That was true and Harry figured that there were going to be some senseless slaughters. The Skrull didn't care about who they kidnapped. Well they cared, but each and every one of them were important cogs in a machine that the Skrulls built to ferret out the people of Earth.
"This is going to be one of those days," Harry whispered with a prominent sigh.
He didn't really relish what SHIELD had to go through and that wasn't even on top of the shit storm that the President being abducted was.
"How could this go on under the nose of pretty much everyone?" Nym asked.
Harry actually had a pretty good answer or rather what he thought was a pretty good answer to these things. "There were other things that happened. They took higher priority."
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. That was the problem, when you focused on the bigger picture. His focus had to be on the biggest picture, because he was the head of one of the most prominent organizations in the world.
Maybe someday he would be the head of the most prominent organization in the universe. That was more of a long term plan more than anything else.
"So how are you going to rebuild the Ministry?" Nym asked him.
"Because someone has to, and it's got to be me, right?" Harry asked.
"Well, not necessary, but I figured that you would have a plan," Nym commented in response.
Harry pondered that situation. "Not sure how much people are going to agree with this plan. Then again, when have people agreed with anything that I've done?"
Harry has gotten flack over putting the wrong kind of jam on his toast and the brand of scarf that he wore. Maybe nothing that insane but it seemed like it half of the time.
"The Society has favors in place, it shouldn't be too hard for someone to enter as Minister and be made a hero to clean things up," Harry answered in response.
He almost figured that person might have drawn the shortest straw on that occasion. His hand brushed through his hair.
"But the Ministry can wait for now," Harry pondered. "Everyone's been sent home to be with their families, and some will be reunited with their families soon enough."
Carol showed up to see how this was going.
"At one time, this was one of the most progressive society's in the world," Harry told her. "Hard of it to believe I know."
"From what Kara says, it comes across as something positively medieval," Carol informed him.
Harry's eyes glanced onto his. "You know, that's the kindest thing that she's ever said about the world."
Carol didn't dare ask what some of the things that her sister said about it. She pretty much figured that something was up.
"We're heading on back now," Harry told them.
He would have hated to leave Fury hanging. Really when the man was so confused and Harry figured that he would touch base with SHIELD. They would have to work together for the future defense plans for Earth.
Of course Harry was going to keep a couple of tricks up his sleeve. Even SHIELD wasn't really above corruption. So he played with an interesting deck of cards.
"This is Stan on the Street and remarkable enough, I'm still alive out of the chaos of what happened. The Avengers triumphed against the Skrull Empire with a little help from their friends. What will the next battle from Earth's Mightiest Heroes hold? No one really knows, although many will speculate in the days to come. It's not easy to be a hero but these guys do pretty well at doing so."
Stan paced back and forth with a smile on his face and turned to people who watched on the camera.
"We are going to encounter the fighting temptress that is adventure soon enough, true believers. Until we've encountered that again, and until the day where we no longer need heroes, remember that we're always here."
Stan surveyed the carnage and he shook his head.
"Until next time, stay true to yourself and believe in what is in your heart," Stan answered. "This is Stan on the Street and I'll be bringing you news about the latest adventure. The President will be returned home this evening and will address the nation after his ordeal. That will be should be wild. EXCELSIOR!"
To Be Concluded in the Final Chapter.
Mandated by law Stan Lee cameo appearance, CHECK!
Next chapter is the wrap up and we'll be throwing this one on the finished pile. See you then.