PART 3: "WILD CARD"

HAMMER INDUSTRIES

A modest set of black heels clacked their way through the hall, the shapely calves they supported striding down from the bottom hem of the crimson skirt. The woman's light brown hair was worn high in a tight bun, her swanish neck weaving subtly from side to side. Her jacket matched the skirt, hugging her torso from waist to shoulders, a covered tablet device clutched under her left arm.

Standing beside the receptionist's desk, the smiling attendant girl greeted the woman pleasantly with a "good morning" as she reached over to grab the door handle and pull it open in time for the woman to stride through without pause.

Inside the boardroom, the long glossy black-glass table was lined on either side by men and women in dark suits, none of them apparently below the age of 50. Conversations stilled and all eyes turned towards Justine Hammer as she rounded the left side and headed for the opposite end. Passing by a portrait of her father hanging on the wall, it was easy to see the familial resemblance to a younger version of the man in the face of the confident daughter.

"Thank you all for making it in-" She began. "I know traveling must be difficult after all the destruction caused by the Chitauri."

An older man with white hair formed in a ring around his temples cleared his throat. "Yes, well we all thought there were a few things worth discussing. We're getting a lot of positive feedback on how our Sentinels performed."

"We anticipate more orders to be placed." Spoke a woman whose black hair was pulled back into a bun so tight it seemed to stretch her face. "And not just to replace damaged or destroyed units."

A slender Chinese man with a clean-shaven head gestured with a hand. "Our armament department is already going over several major upgrades to the weapon systems, including a more intelligent targeting matrix."

"That's about what I expected." Setting her tablet down and opening the protective cover, she swiped a few times before a soft chime emitted from it. "But I think we need to discuss something we hadn't anticipated."

An orb-like projector installed in the ceiling blinked to life as the lights in the room simultaneously darkened. Above the center of the table, a holographic image of a modern Sentinel unit rotated in place. Next to it, was an image of the Gigan that stood static, nearly twice the height of the HAMMER-Tech titan.

"I'm sure we were all thrilled to see how quickly our Sentinels were dispatched by SHIELD's new enforcer. The Gigan, clearly, cannot be equaled by our present state of technology."

A few murmurs of disgruntlement from the board members signaled that the very public slaughtering of their product had not been well received.

"However, that doesn't mean that we have to be left holding our dicks in our hands."

With another swipe of her fingers across the screen of her tablet, another figure materialized in the digital showcase. Standing to the left of Gigan and just a bit shorter, a new model of Sentinel, bulkier looking limbs yet leaner articulation at the joints gave it a far more intimidating profile. If the current model was the soldier, this was the special ops version. The head was not dissimilar, but it possessed a discernable 'face' side to it, with a sensory visor in the shape of a chevron with two lines stabbing downward.

"This is the Praetorian," Justine announced proudly. "The next generation of Sentinel. An improvement on the standard model in almost every facet; thicker armor, superior response time, more agile, more powerful, and as you can see much taller."

An older man leaned forward in his seat, examining the image. "It seems like you've been working on this model for some time?"

"Of course." She said. "I've had plans for these in the works ever since the Kaiju invasion, but the best we could do were estimations of what kind of modifications were needed. Now that we have data from a direct Kaiju encounter with our standard Sentinels, our engineers have been able to make better calibrations."

"So you intend to market these Praetorians as some kind of anti-Kaiju class of Sentinel?"

"Exactly." With a swipe of her tablet, the images shifted to that of several Praetorians arranged in formation, a wedge of mechanical might. "If the destruction brought by Godzilla and the others wasn't enough of a persuasion, yesterday's events should show the world why they need HAMMER Praetorians to protect their cities and infrastructure."

"How long until we can get these into production?" The tense-face woman asked.

Justine smiled. "I've already given the design specs to the Mastermold plant, the prototype model should be rolling out next month."

Impressed, the board members traded glances among themselves.

"Justine…" One man began, leaning back in his plush leather chair. "This is all a wonderful marketing strategy, but based on everything we've seen, do you really think these shiny new toys will be able to stand-up to flesh and blood monsters?"

"I wouldn't be wasting company time and money if I didn't, Frederick." She answered. Entering a new command on her tablet. On the display, some of the Sentinels dissipated leaving only three. The remaining Praetorians then merged into one, transforming into a four-legged behemoth of a machine with three long cannons mounted on the top.

"The next time a monster tries to wage war on us, we'll have a lot bigger guns."

GROOM LAKE, NEVADA

"Gotta hand it to you, Fury, your new pet is quite the catch." The holographic image of Abigail Brand stood in the center of a lighted circle, an inverted shower of luminous particles surrounding her. "Think I can talk him out for a walk sometime?"

"Shouldn't be a problem." Standing on the opposite side of a control panel in an otherwise spartan room of grey walls and tiled floors. Nick Fury tilted his head in contemplation. "Just make sure he doesn't go running off."

"I'm serious, Nick, SHIELD can't hog him all to yourselves. After all, I did shoot him down for you. We're still getting things back in order up here, and I could use him to do a security sweep from here to the asteroid belt."

From her counterpart facility aboard the SWORD satellite, Brand stood in front of a similar device. Though her control panel was a pedestal at her right side, and the image of Nick Fury was projected between two devices set on opposite sides of a cylindrical booth.

"Besides, there's something on Mars that I'd like to get a closer look at." She added.

Fury nodded. "We can definitely get something scheduled, but for right now the Gigan is in maintenance. Took a few hits in the battle and Doc Ock wants to run a few diagnostics before he gets deployed again."

"I'm serious, Nick." Brand focused on him a bit more intently. "Having that monster on our side changes a lot of things for the Earth. My sources in the Kree tell me they're very concerned with us having a weapon like this. I've also had a very serious conversation with the Shi'ar liaison as to what our intentions are with the Gigan, and they don't seem too enthusiastic about it. God only knows what the Skrull's reaction to all this is."

"The point being is that Earth has a new big gun in the room, and it upsets the status quo." Fury smirked. "You woulda thought all the super-powered people flying around down here would have been cause for concern years ago."

"Humans with powers they know how to handle, they're used to it. A weapon like Gigan in the hands of sub-evolved primates? Now that's what worries them."

"Yeah?" Fury answered, irritated at the notion. "Sucks to be them."

Brand couldn't suppress a laugh, try as she might. "Glad to see we're on the same page for this one. I'm a little sick and tired of the other races thinking they can treat us like we're sitting at the kiddie table. And hopefully, the Chitauri can serve as an example for the rest of them to leave Earth alone."

"Any news on the one that got away?" He asked, changing the subject. "Anybody see any three-headed gold dragons floating around up there?"

Her expression darkened. "Nothing yet. But there's a lot of space we don't have eyes or ears towards. And if that thing is anything like what your sources are saying, it could disappear and come back in a million years for all we know."

In the clean-up of the Kaiju invasion, SHIELD had spared no expense in recovering what remains could be found of the several monsters. Other than Gigan, Orga's fragments were under controlled conditions in the Raft facility, and whatever small bits of the SpaceGodzilla that survived immolation by the Phoenix Force had been similarly put into storage. The carcass of one monster, however, possibly the worst, was not accounted for. That of King Ghidorah.

Contrary to all appearances, death, even by complete obliteration, was merely a setback, according to the information provided to Fury by contacts on the other side of the wall. Wanting to know exactly what kind of effects could be wrought on his world by the presence of the Kaiju, he had spent the time to study whatever information he could on the six monsters that had crossed over, even Kiryu. What he learned about the celestial serial killer, did not please him. Mysterious as kaiju are by nature, what information existed on the space-born destroyer invited the most fantastic speculation.

Reports of mind-possessed genetic descendants of Venusians describing Ghidorah's arrival in the solar system tens of millions of years ago and laying waste to three planets, reducing two of them to lifeless rocks. Admittedly he found a lot of the Kaiju lore unlikely, mythical at best. There was precedent for entities that transcended mortal bounds in his native universe, however. So who was he to say that King Ghidorah was not a species of that kind from the other? Upon its destruction, it had become a cloud of flame, which was reminiscent of its arrival on the other Earth in 1964. Evidently having a physical body was optional for this creature.

"Well, if you hear about planets getting knocked off the map, or start seeing lights go out across the sky, give it a second look." He asked.

"Will do."

With that, the image of Director Brand blinked out, leaving Fury alone to mull his thoughts. Leaning over the control panel with both hands he went into a deliberate breathing exercise. Among the dozen or so matters that could benefit from his attention at the moment, dealing with the Gigan situation was probably the last one he wanted to tackle. But the cyborg had gone rogue, broken its control. Not to mention eviscerating some very expensive Sentinels owned by the State of Texas and the Roxxon corporation who were demanding compensation.

He pushed away from the console with a sigh and exited. "If it ain't one thing, it's another."

In a dark corner of the facility's main hanger, where catwalks ran through the shadows of the upper quarters, Claire Marion peered down at the garage below. Swept-back red hair accentuated the sharp features of her face, hawkish, ever observant. In silent slumber, the Gigan stood at the center of a matrix of bridges and lift platforms, dozens of scientists and engineers going over the monster in systematic detail. Be careful. She thought. No matter how tame a wild animal seems, they can lash out and bite when you least expect it.

Having to pose as this woman had been the longest assignment she'd ever undertaken, which for some reason made it easier as time went on. The longer she had to exist as Claire Marion, the less pretending there was, the more real this identity became. She knew she could take a break from her current masters just as she did from the last one, start a whole new life. Maybe even find a way to establish some kind of relationship with her children.

But fat chance of that. She had too much history to ever expect anything but fear and mistrust from them, too much blood on her hands to bother asking for forgiveness. A woman with her powers and skills should be able to do almost anything she wanted. But the hard truth was that if she thought she could ever live something resembling a normal life, then the most devious deception was on her. There was no road to redemption for-

"Mystique…" She heard a man's voice say off to her right. She looked and saw his outline in the shadows; tall, muscular, postured to spring into action in a heartbeat. "You know I hate to see you so… depressed."

She smiled as she walked over to where he was concealed. "For a second, I thought you were going to say 'blue'."

"No." He said, wrapping an arm around her waist, pulling her close. "I like it when you're blue."

The two trust at one another, a passionate kiss born out of repression and defiance, and for several seconds embraced as though they might merge into a single being.

"You're risking a lot, Brock, coming in here." She said, nibbling at his lip.

Crossbones snarled. "There's not a man in SHIELD or HYDRA I'll let stand between me and you."

"Big talk…" Reaching up to his face she felt the mask that he wore, never seen without. "From a man who won't take this thing off."

"I told you..." He gripped her wrists and brought them down. "I don't want you to see me like… like how I am."

Mystique balked, shifting into her true-blue form. "But you don't have a problem with this?"

"You were made that way." He said, putting his hands on her shoulders. "This is how you're supposed to look, beautiful." Bringing a hand up to his own face, he patted the mask. "This was done to me when Fury left me for dead."

She put her hands on his chest, surrendering the matter for the time being. "For which you repaid him, I recall."

"Yeah…" A smile grew on Crossbones. "One memento for another."

Once more, Mystique stood on her tiptoes to kiss Rumlow. "If he finds you here, you're going to be trading scars again."

"I came to pass on the word. The boss is impressed by what the monster can do, says he wants to move up the time-table."

Her eyebrows arched. "Does that mean he'll be authorizing my extraction?"

"Sooner than later I'd have to think." He reached a hand behind her left ear to cradle her head. "So whatever you need to do to get ready, I suggest you start getting things lined up."

A shimmering wave washed over Mystique, replacing her visage with that of Claire Marion. "Just what do you think I've been doing this whole time?"

"It absolutely cannot happen again, Octavius." Fury warned. In the control room of the facility, the SHIELD director and Otto Octavius stood on opposite sides of the central table. "There's enough scrutiny on us as it is without that thing-" He pointed a finger towards the window, through which the unblinking visor of the monster stared back. "-going off the reservation again. I don't think I need to explain to you the shit-storm that will come down on us if we can't control it."

"Director, please, what we are attempting here is completely unprecedented." Otto held up a defensive hand, then gestured to the window. "Which is quite beside the fact that there are still things we do not understand about the Gigan."

Pulpo, the spider-droid that Octavius had adopted as a pet, scrambled across the tabletop, where one of Otto's mechanical tentacles drifted down to allow it to clamber on. With effortless dexterity, it scurried along the arm until it settled on his shoulder.

"Obstacles like this are well-within expectations. We are working with a level of technology that is beyond our grasp, it is important to keep that in mind as we use it to do our bidding."

"So you're saying this thing is unreliable?" Fury asked.

Otto shrugged. "As reliable as anybody else." He wiggled a finger at the droid. "It is not entirely a machine, there are still organic components to both its biology and consciousness. Gigan does not merely respond to programming and follow commands, it thinks and feels. Which is exactly what makes it a superior servant compared to a true automaton, the ability to go beyond its parameters as the situation requires it."

Nick shrugged. "Sounds like a synonym for 'unpredictable'."

"People are unpredictable, and you rely on them all the time."

"Because I know people, I've made a career on it, bet my life on knowing people. That thing, I don't know."

"Fair." Octavius acknowledged as he allowed the droid to clamber from arm to arm like a monkey among branches. "That is why I have devised a program that will attempt to measure Gigan's natural intelligence. Based on what we know, I'd judge it to be around that of a parrot; fairly intelligent, but not possessing the meta-cognitive power of a human."

Coming around the side of the table, Fury stared out at the monster. "So is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"I think we will do just fine, Director, just as long as it understands who its master is. This creature, whatever its biological foundation, was created to be controlled, it requires it. Upon the realization of that concept, I have discovered what caused it to break free."

Fury turned and glared at him. "I thought you said it was beyond our technological grasp?"

"From a purely engineering perspective yes." Otto defended. "I am referring to a natural basis. You see, when it was attacked by the Sentinels, it was not programmed to defend itself, causing the instinct of self-preservation to override outside control. If, however, we allow for a defensive response to being attacked, then the impulse is not in conflict with its commands, eliminating any need to break from control."

"So instead of having too little control over Gigan, you're saying we had too much." The notion struck Nick as unwelcome but entirely too rational to be denied. The monster, however, still possessed too many unknowns to be trusted with that level of freedom. "You might be right, Otto, but I'm still not comfortable giving that thing any more slack on its leash."

With the director facing away, Octavius allowed a snarling twitch to curl his lip. Of course, I'm right. He thought to himself. "Then I'll see what I can do for now. Let us hope that the Sentinels do not put the Gigan in another compromising position."

A melodic jingle began to emanate from the inside of Fury's trench coat, and he took out his phone to check the message. Seeing who it was, his posture stiffened slightly. "I gotta go talk to some people. We'll come back to this later."

"I am ever at your disposal, Director," Otto muttered as the man exited with a parting wave of the hand. Pulpo dangled from the end of one of the tentacles, it rotated in place to observe the ritual.

Once Fury had gone, the doctor's face morphed into a scowl of disgust. "Don't take my advice, I'm just the one who resurrected an alien cyborg, what do I know?"

Turning to gaze through the glass, Otto activated the touch-screen aspect of the pane. Video files of the battle with the invading Chitauri popped-up in layered windows, multiple angles, multiple languages to narrate. Then there was footage of the encounter with the Sentinels. A smile spread across his face to see the ease with which his weapon had dispatched the HAMMER machines.

"I must bow to your creators, Gigan, whoever they were. I can only speculate as to what kind of creature you were before their elegant touch, or for what intent they transformed you. Your creators have long abandoned you, left you to be the slave of lesser masters, to serve the frivolous ends of uninspired races. But now you belong to Otto Octavius, a worthy master, one who sees the true value in your existence."

With a swipe, he condensed the windows to the right side of the screen so that he could stare at the dark visor of the alien. "Yes, you and I Gigan, we have much work to do."

The hot New Mexican sun blazed on the helipad of the facility, forcing Fury to doff his trench coat and sling it over an arm as he approached the Quinjet, engines still winding down as the loading ramp lowered.

"Thought you were busy on the other side?" Nick called out.

Stepping down the ramp, Tony Stark adjusted his expertly tailored suit, trademark sunglasses hiding more than just his vision from the sun. "Decided to take a break," Tony answered casually. "Had to work through a bit of a set-back when a rock-monster did some damage, still got a lot of work to do, but Kiryu's upgrade is coming along just fine."

Nick shook his head. "Yeah, that's just what they need, a 100-meter robot with an Arc-Reactor in its chest."

"I didn't put it in its chest." Stark waved.

"Didn't expect to see you out here." Fury's attention shifted. "Though I supposed you might be interested."

Following a few steps behind his fellow Avenger, Hank Pym used a hand to shield his face from the brightness. "To be honest, I'm a little suspicious you didn't bring me in earlier."

"What? You don't trust Otto?" Nick feigned.

"I wouldn't trust him with my garbage." Pym scowled.

Stark and Fury shook hands. "We need to see the Gigan, and being one of the guys who shot him down for you, I think I'm entitled"

"Don't take it personal gentlemen, but I only wanted one egocentric genius on the team. Nor did I want Jiminy Cricket on my shoulder trying to be the voice of restraint." The latter remark was aimed at Hank as they shook hands. "But that doesn't mean I'm not open to a few suggestions."

The exterior of the cyborg titan was crawling with android spiders and SHIELD technicians as Fury, Stark, and Pym walked across the catwalk not a dozen meters from its chest-saw.

"You know he's pretty cool when he's not trying to kill you." Tony chimed.

"Those are the machines Janet told me about." Pym pointed out as he leaned over the rail. "Amazing."

"Not typically the word I use for 'em, but sure." Gesturing to were two of the spiders were utilizing their tools at the seam of a crack, Fury grimaced. "I hate having them crawling around everywhere, but we wouldn't have the monster operational at all without them."

Tony shrugged. "You're just not used to having robots doing your housework. Listen, the Avengers are all super-grateful for its part in fighting the Chitauri, but it's not like it helped us out of the goodness of whatever it has for a heart. This thing is a superweapon connected to the internet, the fact that its trigger is in the hands of Otto Octavius is reason enough to be worried."

"Oh, and I suppose you want it, huh?" Nick turned away from them. "Sorry to break it to you, but the super-heroes are gonna have to share some of the cool toys."

Pym shook his head. "You misunderstand, the Gigan is too dangerous for anyone. I think you should either destroy it or hide it somewhere."

"Just get rid of it? I bet if I let you install that AI project of yours in its head, you wouldn't be so keen to lock it away."

"How do you know about my AI project?" Hank recoiled, surprised and worried to have his secret endeavor mentioned by all but name.

"Because I'm good at what I do." Fury smirked. "In any case, we just may need to keep Gigan close by. After what happened with the monster incidents in New York, I'd like to have something on their level available to handle situations like that. Plus, I just heard from a little birdie that some of our extraplanetary acquaintances may not appreciate us mere Earthlings possessing something that could actually compete with their own hardware."

"First of all…" Tony raised a finger. "I'm telling Brand you called her your 'little birdie'. Second, you may recall that those monsters were handled by local super-heroes, the same heroes that would handle any problems from any aliens who wanna take a shot at Earth."

"That's my point Stark, I want to prevent them from thinking they can in the first place. The very fact that don't like us having the Gigan is proof that they already thought they had us pegged."

"Or maybe it's the other way around." Both turned to see Pym staring up at the monster, the silent grin of its closed beak giving an unsettling impression. "Mankind has been a violent, murderous race ever since one hominid learned he could use a rock to bash in the head of another hominid. If I were them, I wouldn't want humans to have a weapon capable of flying to my planet and laying waste to my cities."

"Pym, now I know you've been watching too much Star Trek." Fury scoffed. "Just so you know, we're far from the most belligerent race in the galaxy. There are more than a few alien empires who wouldn't think twice about conquering Earth and treating us like slaves, pets, or food. If pointing Gigan at them like a loaded gun is what keeps them off our world, then that's what I'll do."

"It's the vicious cycle of the arms race, Nick." Hank continued. "Our strength invites challenge. Challenge invites conflict, and conflict breeds catastrophe."

Nick Fury said nothing to this, preferring to simply shake his head and lead them on.

Up in the higher portions, Claire Marion watched the three men like a hawk, innately suspicious of their presence. She shifted along the way to follow their movements, like a spider stalking through the webbing. Her cover being blown could be bad enough under normal circumstances.

WASHINGTON D.C.

The office room that overlooked Constitution Avenue on the upper floors of the Federal Reserve Board was filled at the moment. Men and women in expensive suits, cigars, and glasses of liquor, a flat-screen television with one of the all-news networks, volume muted. They sat on leather couches and behind polished wooden desks, engaged in conversations and mulled their drinks at a dull murmur.

The main attraction of the room, however, inlaid in the marble floor and clear of any obstructing furniture, was the design of a skull surrounded by writhing tentacles.

"Will Silvermane be joining us for the show?" A woman with short black hair asked, her suit dark to match. She sat on the corner of a mahogany desk, legs crossed to show just enough skin to entice her male conversation partner. "I heard his car got crushed in the attack."

"Yeah, got stepped on by one of those Chitauri things wrestling with a Sentinel." He answered, using a sip of his drink to make pretense of masking his gaze at her legs. "He's holed-up somewhere upstate New York I think, consolidating whatever resources he has left."

"Can you believe these assholes? Putting on a parade for those machines." A tall man with close-cropped gray hair took a puff from his cigar as he glared at the television screen. "And I for one welcome our new mechanical overlords." He mocked in a sneering tone. On the screen, one could see the news reporter interviewing a HAMMER Tech spokeswoman as they stood beside the foot of one of the automatons.

"Our new corporate overlords, more like." Said another man, middle-aged and slightly overweight, but still nicely dressed. "This whole thing is an advertising stunt for HAMMER, their lobbyists put a lot of money in congresses' pockets to arrange this." He chuckled. "I should know."

The taller man regarded him with a wry grimace. "Never underestimate the servility of the masses."

"Now don't be too harsh Your Honor, they're just looking out for their own interests."

"I thought you were supposed to be looking out for the public's best interest?"

Hearing this question, the shorter man scoffed and took a swig of his drink.

Quite suddenly and without warning, a fiery disk of eldritch energy burst into existence over the face of the HYDRA iconography, stealing all the light from the room. The men and women stood transfixed, shocked and staring, too dumbfounded to know what to do. A pair of secret-service type guards by the doors laid hands on their sidearms, but having no target, exchanged a worried glance.

The mysterious fire billowed into a column for a moment, when it descended, three figures stood in the center.

"Dobryy den." Darkchylde smiled, the Soulsword in her hands still glowing. Behind her, Quicksilver and Sabretooth spared their own devilish grins. "I know this room was already reserved, but I'm afraid the Brotherhood requires it for the day."

Realizing the threat, the two security guards pulled their pistols and immediately began firing.

Much faster than a barrage of speeding bullets, Quicksilver rolled his eyes. With all the casual demeanor of someone checking the refrigerator for a snack, he walked over to where the rounds were moving at a snail's pace through the room. Pietro spent a moment examining them, tilting his head down beside to check their trajectory. Then with a hum on his lips, he grabbed the men and positioned them directly in the path of their own shots. Upon noticing the next bullets making their way through the barrels, he pushed their arms out to the side, so that they would fire into the nearest HYDRA bystanders.

Before the neurons could even register the danger, the guards shuddered from the impact of the .40 caliber rounds slamming into their body armor, the rounds themselves ironically, armor-piercing. Two other shots found their home in the chests of a man and woman to either side, knocking them off their feet as the bullets exploded through their backs in a shower of blood. Four bodies fell at once, leaving Quicksilver standing in the middle with his arms crossed patiently.

The room screamed at once, several of them rushing the doors in a mad scramble to get away from the mutant terrorists. Darkchylde glanced aside and lifted a finger. The seams of the doorway ignited with the same eldritch flame, flaring out as the people threw themselves towards it. Those closest recoiled at first, but they surged forward once more to grab at the handles. Try as they might however, no amount of muscle could budge them open.

Sabretooth's smile expanded into a full-on grin of long fangs. With savage fury he was among the people, his feral cry tearing through the crowd as fast as his claws found their throats. In seconds he found the tall man with grey hair. One swipe tore the face from the skull in ribbons, and a punch to the sternum sent the man crashing into the wall-mounted television with a sickening crack. The middle-aged senator gaped with quivering jowls, his drink falling to the floor.

"Waste of good booze, fatso." Victor Creed snarled a moment before he pounced, teeth wrapped halfway around the man's neck.

Illyana Rasputin remained in the center of the room as her cohorts did their work, the bloodcurdling screams not seeming to disturb her in the slightest. Seeing an opportunity, the woman with short black hair took hold of a heavy glass liquor bottle, and rushing forward, swung to crush it into the back of the mutant's head.

The glass shattered against a flare of previously invisible magical energy, leaving the intended target unharmed. Darkchylde turned slowly, watching as the woman let the broken half go, stumbling back in terror. Lifting her left hand with the palm to the ceiling, she created a phenomenon similar to the teleportation ring under the frightened woman. Shrieking as her arms flailed, the woman sank knee-deep into the pool of ethereal fire, two sets of crimson clawed arms reaching up from some hellish dimension to clutch onto her clothes and drag her the rest of the way down.

A man in his mid-thirties slammed his body into the glass of the window, forgetting in the panic of the moment that it was built to withstand a blast from an RPG. He bounced off with a sharp grunt, a shoulder joint dislocated.

"Need some help with that?" A curious Quicksilver asked, standing beside him. Grasping the man by the side of his head, Pietro smashed it against the glass a dozen times in the blink of an eye. In the next second, he held little more than a collection of shattered bones in a skin-sack and allowed the slumping body weight to take it out of his hand.

The sound of phone buttons being pushed alerted him to a shape rustling the other side of a long curtain. Behind it, a woman with a tight hair bun, hyperventilated as she desperately tied to dial for help. The curtain was flung back, however, exposing her to Quicksilver.

"You know I hear those things can give you a brain tumor." He said with concern before he grabbed ahold of the hand that held the phone and vibrated them until they became a blur. With a quick jerk, he phased them into the woman's head and extracted his hand, leaving her own embedded wrist-deep in the side of the skull. She gargled for a second before collapsing to the floor, vacant eyes staring blankly outward as her body spasmed.

Darkchylde yawned as she waited for the others to finish, tapper her hooved left leg to the beat of a song in her mind. She turned and saw Sabretooth drag one last victim over to the large glossy desk and holding him by the leg, whip him against the edge of it like beating dust from a rug, the man's back bent over it at ninety-degrees.

"That's the last of them." Came Pietro, zooming into her field of vision. "A pretty nice little hideaway they had here."

"Yes." She agreed. "HYDRA wouldn't want anybody finding their smoker's lounge. No better place to lay low." Looking down at all the carnage on the floor, Illyana gestured to the bodies with a degree of displeasure. "But we must do something about this mess."

"Fine," Quicksilver growled. His form became a perpetual blur as he moved each body into a single pile, heaping them atop one another. There was no care given to the dignity of the dead, just haphazard limbs sticking out of a blood-soaked mound.

Once more Illyana made the rising gesture with her hand, summoning a ring of fire around the corpses. One by one the bodies were pulled down by gangly monstrous arms, grasping and clawing to the sound of gnashing maws and hungry snarls. When the last body disappeared, she made a fist and collapsed the portal.

"Lovely friends you have," Quicksilver remarked, admiring the charred ring on the floor. "Why don't you invite them over more often?"

"Trust me, lyubovnik, that's as much of them as you want to see."

"Oh well. My eyes are full at the moment anyway." Blurring up to her, Pietro scooped Darkchylde up in his arms and brought her in for a kiss. She giggled playfully, returning the affection and wrapping her arms around his neck, a hooved leg curling up in delight and tail wriggling.

Sabretooth saw this and growled. "We only got the one room. Go find another if you wanna get into that."

Breaking away from the kiss, Quicksilver deadpanned. "Well, we've got to find some way to kill time until the show starts."

Creed snarled, walking over to where liquor bottles were arranged on glass shelves and snatching three bottles for himself, snapped the neck off one like a chicken. "This better get going quick." Then he downed the contents of the bottle, glass bits and all.

ELSEWHERE…

"17th's clear." With the World War 2 memorial at his back, Steve Rogers glanced along the street, the Washington Memorial obelisk across the way. "So far, nothing suspicious."

"Copy that, Cap." Came back the voice in his earpiece.

Rogers looked up and saw the wingspan of his friend streaking overhead. "Clear skies today, Sam?"

The day itself was sunny and cloudless, giving Falcon an optimal bird's-eye view of the capitol. "Everything looks good up here."

Captain America shook his head as turned to watch the memorial's fountain. "I can't be the only one who thinks this Sentinel parade is a bit… over the top."

"Yeah well, it's not the worst thing politicians could waste money on." Perched on the roof of the National Museum of Natural History, a woman's blonde hair waved in the breeze as she oversaw her portion of Constitutional Avenue. "Besides, as far as ops go, this is pretty vanilla."

"That's how that all start out, Morse." Rogers chimed. "Doesn't mean you can get complacent."

"Guys…" Mockingbird scoffed. "We're not talking about the President in an open Lincoln. These are a bunch of robots armed to the teeth. I feel bad for anybody who tries to take a shot at them."

"With a whole lot of collateral damage in the aftermath." Added Wilson. "This whole thing could get really bad if those things start cutting loose with their hand-cannons."

"Which is why we have to remain vigilant." By now Captain America had found his way to the neighboring Constitutional Gardens. "There are ways this could all go sideways that we can't account for."

"I thought that's what those floating fortresses were for?" Bobbi Morse asked.

Above the city, two Helicarriers hovered in place, low-flying clouds of steel, munitions, and adapted alien tech providing a pervasive presence of being watched. Even without the guidance of the Gigan, their algorithm was working non-stop. Facial recognition programs scanned every person within two miles, data trackers sorted social media and other internet traffic. Law enforcement alerts were analyzed and cross-referenced from the county level to Interpol.

"Those are a tool." Reminded Rogers. "They're no substitute."

"Showtime, Cap!" Banking low over the National Mall, Falcon watched the first of the several federally owned automatons touch down on 3rd street between the end of the mall and the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial. These were differentiated by the gold trim at the edges of their armor, Hundreds of media personnel and general public snapping pictures of the Sentinels with the U.S. Capitol in the background. The image of the seat of Congress through the towering legs was powerful to those savvy enough to recognize it.

"And here we are folks!" A blonde reporter woman announced to her cameraman. "Just behind me, you can see the Sentinel units that deployed around the Capitol during the Chitauri invasion. These units, which you see come bearing the federal eagle on their chests, fought off an incursion about a mile away from the White House."

In unison, the Sentinels in their black armor executed a mechanically sharp salute to the onlookers as "Rock You Like a Hurricane" began blaring out from speakers that could only be emplaced in the automatons themselves. A cheer went up from the crowd, not just those in the press pool, but all those lining the sidewalks of Madison Drive waiting for the parade to begin.

The Sentinels did a perfectly coordinated right-face to go north on 4th Street and began marching in lock-step with one another.

"Alright team, here we go." Captain America said into his commlink, being able to see even from where he was the towering machines moving.

"I'm starting to understand why mutants don't like these things," Falcon commented. "They're really creepy, and they ain't even trying to kill me."

Mockingbird shook her head. "The internet is going to have a field day with all the implications of giant faceless androids standing tall over the nation's capital."

"Yeah, well if that's the worst thing we get out of today, I'll consider it a win." Though all seemed as peaceful as could be expected, there was something that nagged at the back of his mind, something that reminded him to expect the worse. Leading the Avengers had taught him a lot of things, one of them was that trouble always seemed to strike when you least expected it.

Keeping a steady route overhead, Sam Wilson's tech-mask allowed him to zoom in and out of anything he wanted to peek at a bit closer. He looked for the typical signs of trouble brewing, suspicious movement, cell-phone chatter being filtered for red-flag terms. There was a momentary focus on a man skulking through the crowd, but it wound up just being him sneaking up on a woman to playfully surprise her.

"Hey, what's that?" Morse's voice alerted. The Sentinels were just beginning to pass by the west building of the National Gallery of Art, and using a pair of electronic binoculars, locked her eyes on a young man ducking under a barricade to step into the road. "Falcon! You seeing this?"

"Got it!" Swooping down in an arc to the right, the red wings of Sam Wilson set course for intercepting whoever this odd young man was.

"What's going on Morse?" Cap asked, his nerves suddenly tightening.

"Not sure. Young man, early 20's maybe, light skin, dark hair, stepped into the road. Can't tell if he's just being stupid or this is some kind of protest."

Down in the road, the man was wearing a pair of brown jeans, a white shirt, with an open button-up plaid over it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a red object that fit in his palm. Despite the nervousness on his face, the thundering steps of the mechanical titans getting closer and closer, he steeled his courage and pulled his arm back to pitch the object.

Before he could launch his missile, however, Falcon came in from behind and snatched him off the ground like a field mouse. The object fell from his hand as he was swept away, impacting the ground and splattering a red substance across the asphalt as it broke.

The crowd nearby was too confused to know how to react, most considering it a foolish stunt stopped as soon as it was enacted, and not worth a second thought.

On the roof of the National Air and Space Museum, Falcon dropped the man on his stomach before coming to land a few paces away.

"You wanna tell me just what the hell you're doing?" Wilson demanded.

The young man groaned painfully as he got to his feet, looking up to see for the first time who had grabbed him. It took him a few moments to grasp his situation, and even then, he had to process the question, glancing around as he got himself together.

"I…" He began, heart rate decreasing, "I wasn't trying to hurt anybody, I just wanted to make a statement."

"Like what? Tiananmen Square?"

"No..." The man recoiled. "Back… Back before the government shut down the mutant camps, my mother and brother were taken by Sentinels, and they only reason they didn't get me is because she hid me before they cracked my house open like an egg. I never saw them again."

"You're a mutant…" Suddenly the kid's motivation became clear. The previous era of Sentinels had menaced America's mutant population, leaving a lot of bad memories in their wake. The tension between them lessened, and Sam relaxed his posture a bit. "What's your name kid?"

"Kevin." He admitted. "Kevin Sidney."

"Sam!? What's the situation? You need back-up?" Captain America came over the comms.

Wilson shook his head. "Not necessary, Cap. Under control."

"Copy that."

Hearing the half of the conversation, Sidney's ears perked. "Is that Captain America?"

"The one and only," Sam confirmed, glancing back at the kid. Another old memory occurred to him, that it had been Rogers that had been at the forefront when the public's opinion of mutants turned, recalling the famous cover of Time magazine.

"So, Kevin, you're a mutant. Were you gonna use your powers? I don't know if they still have it in their programming, but Sentinels probably don't react well to being attacked by you guys."

"Nah, it was just a balloon filled with paint." Dejected, Kevin leaned against an air vent. Still clutching a rib as he let out a sigh. "My powers wouldn't do anything to those…" he paused, glancing to where the machines were marching by on the opposite side of the mall. "Those things."

"What is your power?" Falcon, asked, genuinely curious. "Is it dangerous?"

Visibly uncomfortable, Kevin nonetheless concluded it was best to play ball with Avenger, if for no other reason than to maybe earn a let-off with a warning. "Just don't… Don't freak out." He warned.

Sam watched as Kevin stood straight, looked very intently at him, and before his eyes the kid's body shifted, becoming an exact duplicate of him, excepting of course the clothes.

"Like what you see?" Kevin asked, but in Sam's voice.

Wilson could only stare gob-smacked at the imitation of himself. "You can morph your body…"

"Something like that." Kevin shifted back into his normal appearance, though now he seemed wary of how his exhibition would be received. "It's not super-useful most of the time."

"You ever think about the Xavier Institute? They know how to develop powers like yours, they could help."

"I did for a bit, yeah but, I don't think I'd be comfortable in a place like that." Sidney put his hands out to the side. "So, what do we do now? Am I under arrest?"

"Nah." Falcon thought for a moment, mulling something. "But if you want to put your ability to good use, I know somebody else who does a lot with you."

In spite of Sam's reassurance, Steve Rogers couldn't bring himself down from a tension of something about to happen. Too many false alarms in his life had turned out to be a diversion before the flaking maneuver came smashing in. He just couldn't help but think it was quiet, too quiet.

KOOM… KOOM… KOOM… The footfalls of the Sentinels continued down the avenue, and with each resounding fall, the audience grew more awestruck, staring up at their impassive, empty facial spaces only to see the red lights as they passed by. Eventually, they ceased cheering and became for the most part, quiet.

A few minutes passed by without incident, the machines coming up to the intersection of Madison and 14th street, where the obelisk of the Washington Monument towered over even them.

Unfortunately, as it was, even the classically-inspired capital was not without its share of society's poorest. Even now as the parade continued and the apparatus of national security was as watchful as ever, a disheveled elderly man wound his way through the crowd that had gathered on the steps around the obelisk. He wore a spoiled Roxxon oil ballcap over his matted grey hair, his face overgrown with a matching bristly beard from which deep-set eyes peered out. His plaid shirt and faded jeans bore the stains and tears of a life forgotten by his fellow man.

"Spare some change?" He asked in a broken voice as he shuffled along, an old paper coffee cup in his hand. "Anything helps…" He muttered.

He was spied by a woman in the crowd, even older than he was despite his shabbiness, and her face cringed to see a man in such a wretched state. She reached into her purse as she closed the distance between them, pulling whatever coins she could from the bottom. Reaching him, she dropped the change in his cup.

"Here you go." She said, laying her other hand on his wrist. The man seemed to be caught off guard in the moment, inhaling suddenly as he turned to meet her eyes. Then he glanced down and understood the gesture, giving her a polite nod, which she returned.

It was then that old woman looked down to where her hand had incidentally pulled back the sleeve of his shirt, and she noticed the partial presence of a few numbers tattooed onto his forearm.

"Teyere Gat!" She exclaimed in Yiddish.

He quickly placed his other hand on hers, giving her a calming expression. For a few seconds he stared hard into her, and the softness in his eyes gave way to a hard glint. "Geyn." He told her in the same language. "Gey yetst, antloyf."

Hearing this, her mouth trembling, she snatched her hand away and fled from him with a bewildered fear across her face.

He stood there for a few moments, gazing down into the cup, all else around him drowning out as his thoughts swirled in his mind like a whirlpool, focusing on a single point of resolve. Slowly, he reached up and removed his hat.

"Captain America…" Came a woman's voice over the comms, the liaison between the Avenger team and the Insight crew. "We have something."

The old man moved to where the crowd thinned near the base of the monument, turning to look back in the direction of the approaching Sentinels.

"What is it?" Rogers asked. "Trouble?"

"Activity on the green around the Washington Monument." He was told.

"Eyes up everyone!" Removing his shield from its magnetic bond on his back, Cap tensed, moving towards the monument, scanning the considerable crowd for anything that stood out.

"I'm in the air, Cap!" He heard Falcon say.

"Want us on converge?" Mockingbird asked.

"Negative, maintain coverage on your sector, we still don't know what we're dealing with."

There was a blur of motion around the crowd at the base of the monument. Those nearby felt a rush of wind go by them, then heard the clattering of small objects pelting the stone. A man knelt down and discovered them to be tiny ball bearings. All in a circle the beads dropped, hundreds, thousands.

"We've identified a threat, Captain."

Listening to the SHIELD agent on the other end of the line, Captain America stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh god…"

The old man held his hand out, holding the Roxxon cap out by his side. A blur went past the front of him, and in place of the hat, was now a helmet. He slipped it on.

The ball bearings around the crowd rose into the air as if gravity had lost control of them, rising to create an orbital field as the people gawked and gasped.

"Evan after all the bloodshed…" A voice boomed out. "Even after all the pain, this nation made our kind suffer…"

The crowd turned to see the man in the helmet levitating off the ground. The younger among them didn't understand, but the parents and older recognized what they were looking at immediately.

"MAGNETO!" a woman screamed. The crowd scrambled the flee but the ball bearing ring started to spin, and when a man tried to pass through them, they went through his hand like miniature bullets. He cried bloody murder as he fell back clutching the shredded appendage, the others realizing with horror that they had been snared in a trap. Too tall to jump over, and too thick to doubt, they cowered from the wall.

"You resurrect these abominations!" Magneto continued, casting an outstretched arm towards the Sentinels. "You have learned nothing… So now you must endure a harsh reminder."

Magneto's hand turned palm upward.

"The Helicarriers have no shot!" Mockingbird called out. "The crowd is too close for their cannons!"

"He's using them as a human shield!" Soaring above, Falcon searched for an opening, but between the monument, the barrier, and the people, there was no way to get close to him.

The Sentinel in the front of the line ground to halt mid-stride, its joints groaning in protest.

Magneto's hand lifted.

Its feet came off the ground, the sparks flaring out from where the Sentinel's limbs struggled against an invisible force. Then it went crashing into the National Museum of American History like a wrecking ball. People screamed, ran in all directions, dust and debris sent into the air only to come smashing down.

Steve Rogers was already sprinting across the west side of the park when he heard an explosion go off somewhere behind him, he skidded to a halt and turned to see a plume of fire and smoke erupting from the Federal Reserve Board building. What the hell is Magneto planning? He wondered.

The six other Sentinels ceased their march, their posture stiffening, the humming sound of additional power coursing through their frame.

"Threat detected." The machine emitted in a flat, deep autotune. "Analyzing vector."

Its arm raised, the fingers shifting, expanding until it formed a concave structure, a yellow light building in the pit.

"Mutant identification: Magneto, protocol status: eliminate."

"We have to find a way to get those civilians clear!" Rogers cursed.

Falcon came to perch on the capstone of the monument, peering down at Magneto as he hovered above the reach of the people trapped by his vortex.

"How can we even get close to him? We have to neutralize his power somehow."

"The Sentinels are activated guys!" Morse called out. Running through the crowd on the sidewalk she stopped to help a group of people lift a piece of rubble a man had been pinned under. Others were injured, with bloody faces and dust-covered bodies, Magneto repeating the scenery of his attack in 2001.

Along Madison Drive, the Sentinels similarly transformed their hands into weapons, moving with renewed purpose. Overhead, the Sentinel that had been sent crashing into the History Museum, got back to its feet, fortunately, programmed with enough care to avoid the civilians scrambling around like ants below.

"I've still got people trapped over here!"

Outside Magneto's barrier, a team of Capitol police aligned themselves with weapons drawn and began firing with the renegade master of magnetism in their sights. The bullets never made it past the orbital field, stopped immediately upon crossing into it before being absorbed into the collection.

Their attack did not go unnoticed, and with a flick of his finger, Magneto sent a number of pellets in their direction, dropping each officer where he stood with small entry wounds across their faces that began to bleed.

Deciding that the explosion from the Federal Reserve building was too far away to deal with at the moment, Captain America was closing in on the Washington monument when he heard Sam's alarmed voice in his ear.

"Cap! Watch your six!"

Rogers' cast a glance back just in time to see a set of fangs and claws half-a-heartbeat away from being on top of him. He slammed his shield in the space between with no room for error, intercepting Sabertooth and sending him to the dirt. But the feral killer was reoriented on his target before the momentum was even spent, spitting out a gob of blood as he snarled into a savage smile.

"Been waiting to get a shot at you since '45!" He growled.

"And you still picked the wrong damn time, Creed!" Cap bit back.

Both men threw themselves at one another.

Biting his lip, Falcon had no desire to get himself shredded in a hail of tiny meteors, nor did he wish to be caught in the grip of Magneto himself, his wing-suit being vulnerable to his powers. But it drove him crazy to just sit there doing nothing while the orchestrator of all this chaos was right below him.

"All this tech and I shoulda' grabbed a goddamn rock!" He spat.

The lead Sentinel stopped at the intersection of 15th street, hand-cannon still leveled. "Civilian risk factor beyond acceptable parameters, initiating readiness position."

Bobbi Morse was helping an injured woman walk when she caught sight of a sudden burst of fire on the road behind the Sentinels. When it subsided a moment later, she saw a strange woman standing in the middle of the street, outlandish clothes, a huge sword, but most striking was the pair of backward-kneed legs with hooves, and the swishing tail.

Darkchylde raised the Soulsword in the air and brought the tip down to stab into the asphalt. From the point of impact, a snaking river of fire raced out in opposite directions in a wide arc, coming back to one another to create a circle that spanned the breadth of the avenue. From the inside edges of the ring, more streaks emerged and cross-crossed until they formed a pentagram.

"Cap!" Bobbi cried out, ushering the woman she held into the arms of other bystanders. "It's Darkchylde!"

But was no response on the line.

Once all the lines had finished crossing, they flared with infernal power, and a huge, red, reptilian arm reached its way up from the fires and slammed down on the street.

The near Sentinel turned, pivoting its upper torso. "Threat detected."

A new, monstrous bellow came from the fiery portal, and the rest of a massive, demonic dragon with curled black horns and crimson scales emerged. It roared at the faceless machine before lunging up on black wings to tackle it, sending both tumbling backward.

With the fiendish beast out of the way, a swarm of smaller creatures came spewing out from the fire with rabid fervor, all manner of ferocious and horridly formed bipeds and quadrupeds unleashed onto the plane. Darkchylde grinned as she watched the infernal denizens scatter.

From the apex of the monument, Falcon screwed his courage to the hilt and leaped from the perch, folding his wings back to form his body into an aerodynamic shape, reaching terminal velocity within seconds.

Mockingbird vaulted over a car's hood, looking back to make sure the vehicle was indeed behind her. Not a second later a brutish monster, resembling a mixture of a bull and a gorilla barreled through the car, taking a few bullets to the chest as she fired back at the amply sized target. It barked in reaction but did not slow.

Captain America hit the ground back-first, bringing his shield over his chest just as Sabretooth leaped on top of him, his mask already slashed. Two feet in the gut sent Victor Creed doubling over, but not before catching a grip on the rim of the shield and using it to keep Rogers close to him. Steve pulled his face away, knife-like fangs only inches from his throat.

Taking in the full view of the chaos and terror, Magneto remained impassive as those below him screamed and cried out, ruminating a grim appraisal of the Brotherhood's work.

"So weak…" He thought, seeing how easy it was to instill menace and swat aside their means of defense. "The arrogance of homo sapien has left them complacent, soft, vulnerable." Atrocity he had suffered, and atrocity he had himself wrought, violence passed over Erik Lehnsherr as water over stone. "Let them learn the power of the homo-superior. Let them learn to fear his wrath."