Chapter 6: It's Raining Aliens
One year.
That's how long it took until Sean got the call he was waiting for. Fury wanted him to get to the Helicarrier as soon as possible. Sean told him that he'd be there soon, but that he needed to do something on the way.
In the last year Sean had accomplished a lot. After he stole the Extremis virus he settled in to experiment on the stuff he had collected so far. Between the virus, Whitehall's blood, and Banner's blood he was certain that he could help Ava. There was something missing from the formula, but Sean had a pretty good idea what that was and he should get his hands on it soon.
As for enhancing himself he had slightly more success, he had managed to use Whitehall's blood to stabilize the virus and injected himself with it. Sean had a fever for several hours, but by the end he had a noticeable gain in strength, endurance, and speed. His fire was even more potent than ever, turning a brilliant white when he pumped enough power into them.
By taking the drones from Vanko apart Sean was able to put together a modified version of Tony's repulsors, and built it into a dozen handguns. They didn't have the same thrust that the Iron Man armors could generate but the energy they gave off was more damaging. Using the Vibranium to build them enhanced their power output and made it so that they can be fired for a prolonged time without overheating.
He also scaled up the arc reactor to provide enough power to run a small city, though since his Fortress was fully powered he didn't really need it. Sean figured that he could make use of it in further Jumps since he didn't want to step on Tony's toes in the power game. For now he used it to charge his handguns with around a hundred shots worth of energy until he could miniaturise it further to fit in them.
During this time Sean continued traveling, making a point of paying a visit to a few people and places. He raided a few cartels and arms dealers along the way, increasing his growing stock of various supplies (though he used the cosmic garbage disposal to destroy any drugs he recovered). Any cash he gathered was either deposited in his accounts or converted into different resources.
His library and records for all kinds of media continued to build. He knew these weren't all the same as his original world, but having a guideline was better than nothing. Plus, if he ever went to a jump where he was stranded somewhere for ten years, or needed to hide in his Fortress, then he would have plenty of entertainment.
Fury wasn't happy when Sean told him he needed to do something on the way, but he was sure his surprise would more than make up for it.
LINE BREAK
"Sir, we've got an unidentified bird on approach." Came the report from one of the techs on the bridge.
Fury looked around from where he stood at his command station, "Well, then identify it."
He turned back to the conference table behind him. Gathered around it were the members of his Avenger's Initiative bar two. Hawkeye was compromised by the enemy and they didn't know where he was. Dragon should've been here already but he said he had something to do.
Seated at the table were a strong looking blond man, a beautiful redhead, an average looking man, and a man wearing sunglasses looking for all the world like he wanted to be somewhere else. Pacing to the side was another blond man, but this one had long hair and wore what looked like Norse armor. These were Captain America, Black Widow, Hulk, Iron Man, and Thor.
Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, was the world's first superhero. He was a young man during WWII that was too sickly and frail to enlist, but he didn't let that stop him. Several times he tried to join the army and was always rejected, until Dr. Abraham Erskine gave him an alternative.
Dr. Erskine had developed a super soldier serum and was just looking for the person to use it on. Providence led him to Steve and after going through training Steve showed he had what the doctor was looking for: heart. After being enhanced with the serum Steve became little more than a poster boy for the army, but later he proved himself by single-handedly rescuing over a hundred POWs and was finally allowed to join the war effort.
Captain America would go on to become a pivotal leader in the war. He and his unit, the Howling Commandos, crossed Europe taking out Hydra bases and pushing the Nazi advance back. Steve would end up sacrificing himself to crash a plane that was loaded with bombs powered by the Tesseract.
The Tesseract was what gave the leader of Hydra, the Red Skull, the ability to run roughshod over the allies until Steve arrived. Unfortunately in their last battle, Steve made the choice to crash the plane in the Arctic while he was still in it. Recently they had found and defrosted him. Surprisingly once they heated him up he made a full recovery.
Just a few minutes ago they had managed to capture Loki and bring him back to the Helicarrier. Now they were trying to figure out his next move so they could stop him. Loki had threatened to bring an army of aliens down to conquer the Earth using the very same Tesseract. He had stolen it from a Shield base after using it to open a portal and come to Earth.
"Uh, Sir, he says you're expecting him?" The same technician from before interrupted Fury's thoughts.
"What? Patch them through." He waited for the tech to signal that it was done, "Who is this?"
"Ah, hey Fury. It's Dragon, sorry I'm late. I stopped off to pick up a surprise. Permission to come aboard?" Came the voice of one of the missing men.
"Granted, get in here." Fury barked. It took him long enough to get here.
After another moment the doors to the bridge opened and Dragon entered, only he wasn't alone. With him were two women and three men. He was dressed differently than Fury had ever seen him. He wore armor that looked similar to Thor's minus the cape, though in darker colors and with flame designs on the sleeves. There seemed to be a hood attached to the armor but it was down at the moment.
One of the women wore Norse styled armor, and carried a sword. The other was in an all white bodysuit carrying a complicated looking helmet in her arms. The men were an even odder sight: one in armor like Tony's, one in what looked like a cat suit, and the third wearing metal wings of some sort.
Fury recognized two of these people. The woman in the white bodysuit was a former Shield asset named Ava Starr, going by the codename Ghost. An accident in a Shield lab led to her having powers and Hydra took the opportunity to train her into an Operative under the guise of a Shield asset, probably to be used as their pet assassin. When Fury worked to eliminate Hydra she was one of many assets to disappear in the chaos.
The man wearing armor like Stark's was Lt. Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes. An Air Force liason to Stark Industries and Tony Stark's best friend. He had taken the armor now dubbed 'War Machine' from Stark under orders from his higher ups. After that scuffle in New York, Stark allowed him to keep using it, but made it clear to the government that the armor was Rhodey's property.
"Hey guys, I thought we might need some backup." Was Dragon's casual comment.
"Brother?" Thor's voice piped up from across the room. "I wondered where you were at. And Sif as well! Glorious!"
"Explain," Fury ground out. He was not in the mood for surprises right now.
"Well your team seemed a little lacking in women and black guys so I figured I'd balance the scales. We don't want any claims of racism or sexism." If looks could kill Dragon would be very, very dead.
LINE BREAK
Sean had a hard time not laughing at the looks on everyone's faces. Their reactions ranged from amused (Widow), to confused (Steve), all the way to shock (Banner). He decided to stop messing with them.
"Alright let's start from the top. My name is Sean O'Connor, Third Son of Odin, Prince of Asgard. Called the Dragon of Shield."
Fury looked like he would blow a gasket, "You didn't feel like sharing that?"
"Honestly it wasn't important at the time." Before anyone could interrupt again Sean continued, "These are the Lady Sif, Ghost, War Machine, Black Panther, and...how does Falcon sound?" The last was said with a question to the man with wings and received a nod. "Right, and Falcon. You said all hands on deck, so I picked up a few extra."
It hadn't been difficult to convince Ava or Rhodey to come with him, and he was surprised as hell to find that Sif was still with the Wakandans. Sam Wilson, now dubbed Falcon, was the most difficult to convince and even then he basically joined as soon as he heard the threat. Even T'Challa didn't hesitate when Sean explained what was happening.
"Now we can sit here and argue about breaking protocol or we can start working on handling the threat." Sean moved over to Thor and embraced him, "It's good to see you again Thor, I heard about New Mexico but I was a little busy."
"Worry not, I thought as much. It is wonderful to see you too, Brother. We will need to speak of things later though." Thor was all smiles though there was an undercurrent of worry and sadness.
Sean nodded and then turned to Banner offering a hand, "Hey Doc, how are you? Make any progress?"
The man half rose and took the hand shaking it vigorously, "More than I expected, it's not perfect but we're working on it. I definitely feel a lot less dangerous in crowded places. Thank you for everything. Oh, and she wants you to stop by soon."
"My pleasure. I'll be sure to do that once this is all settled." Sean turned to the redhead, "Hello again Romanoff, your hair is shorter. I like it."
"Thank you O'Connor, at this point you may as well call me Nat." She smiled a coy little grin. Sean had come to realize that her playfulness with him was just a game, he saw no interest or affection in her eyes when they spoke. This didn't really bother him, she seemed like a cool person but not what he was looking for romantically.
"Only if you call me Sean," he answered with a laugh. He only gave a nod to Tony, "Stark," then turned to Steve. "Captain Rogers. I was glad to hear they pulled you out of the ice, though I'm sorry for the situation you find yourself in."
The man shook his extended hand, "Thank you. Forgive me, but you're Asgardian too?"
"Not exactly. I was born human, but the Royal Family adopted me." Sean turned back to Fury, "Enough about me though. What's the plan?"
With a heavy sigh Fury gestured at Stark and Banner, "We track the cube."
"Shall we play Doctor?" Tony asked Bruce and the two moved to head for the lab.
"In the meantime, we prepare. Do whatever you need to do, be ready to move out at a moment's notice." Fury waved them off, Sean knew he would have to deal with him later.
LINE BREAK
Sean made his way to the lab with Ava following him, she had chosen to stay close to him since she didn't trust Shield. Over the last year he had visited her and Dr. Foster a few times. She had become a good friend. He entered the lab to find everyone yelling at each other about who was at fault. Sam and T'Challa were standing in the back keeping quiet.
Sean moved into the middle of the room, "HEY! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" Everyone stopped and looked at him. "Now is not the time for this. Loki wants to split us up, divide us."
Before he could continue the device looking for the Tesseract started beeping. Banner went over to check and people went back to arguing who should go after it. An explosion rocked the ship and fire roared up beneath them. Acting on instinct Sean absorbed all the fire and tried to diffuse the shockwave.
He was mostly successful, everyone was knocked back but the glass held against Banner and Nat. Everyone got up and started moving. The first thing Sean did was check on Bruce, fortunately he looked like he was still in control.
Fury began issuing orders, Sean pulled Ava aside. "I need you to do me a favor. Find Agent Coulson, stay near him but out of sight. Can you do that?"
"Yeah, but why?" She looked a little shaken up but she trusted him.
"Call it a gut feeling, I'll explain after this is all over. Stay safe." She nodded and rushed off. Sean had decided that after he fixed her up he would invite her to join him on the Chain. They got along well and he could feel a growing fondness for her. Of everyone in this universe so far, she's the only one (outside of his family) that he would really miss. He thought she would enjoy the opportunity to travel different worlds and grow in power and knowledge.
Sean was the last in the lab and heard Fury over the comm device they were all given, "Dragon; Stark and Rhodes are handling the turbine. Help Rogers clear the intruders. They're in Shield uniforms so be careful."
A quick confirmation and Sean was off. It didn't take long to find some, it looked like Loki had at least some idea that there would be more resistance because it seemed like he brought a lot of guys. The squad of four that Sean encountered went down in only a couple of seconds.
Sean headed for Loki's cell, hoping to get there before anything happened. Along the way he was delayed by several more groups. He arrived to find Coulson bleeding on the ground, Ava unconscious, the cell missing, and Loki gone.
"Coulson!" Sean bent down to check the man and found he still had a weak pulse.
"H-Hey, Drag-gon. The god rabbited, s-sorry." His breath was getting weaker and his eyes closed. For a moment Sean actually wavered on whether he should reveal his Fortress, but that thought passed almost as soon as it entered his head.
He grabbed Coulson and opened a portal straight to his medbay, "Don't say I never did anything for you." The bed patched Coulson up so his life wasn't in danger anymore, but Sean stopped it before it finished healing him completely. It would be suspicious if he was perfectly fine. Before he could wake up, Sean moved them back to the cell room.
As the medical team arrived Sean heard Ava coming around and moved over to her, "Hey, you alright?"
She looked at him dazed, "I don't like your brother. The slimy one I mean, the other one is hot though." He had told her the truth of his family here in this world. She didn't believe him at first until he showed her the videos from New Mexico and his armor.
Sean laughed and patted her arm, "That's been said before, about both of them." He helped her to her feet, placing a hand on her back when she wobbled slightly.
"He came up behind me, I didn't even have time to phase." There was a frown on her face and she was clearly disappointed in herself.
Sean tried to comfort her, "Loki's always been a tricky bastard. I can't tell you how many times he's snuck up on me." The frown was replaced with a small smile as she nodded.
Ten minutes later found everyone except Nat, Thor, and Clint on the bridge. Thor was the only one of them to be lost in the attack, he still got tricked into the cell and dropped by Loki. Sean felt doubly embarrassed about his gullibility now that they were brothers. The muscle-bound idiot just never failed to fall for Loki's tricks.
"Do we know where he's going?" Steve asked when they all gathered, even though he knew it was best if he didn't just provide all the answers. That would only serve to rob them of growing opportunities and make them weaker in the trying times ahead.
"New York, Stark tower to be exact. The tracking algorithm came through right before the attack." Bruce looked shaken by everything, but as he spoke a determination came over his face.
"So that's where we go," Sean stood and ran his gaze over everyone. "Everybody suit up. Stark, Rhodes, Thor get there first. Try to stop whatever Loki has planned. Fury, call in an evacuation order on the surrounding area, say it's a bomb threat or something. Cap, get Widow and Barton. The rest of us will meet you in the hangar."
Everyone looked at him for a moment, trying to decide if they should follow his orders. Even the techs stopped when they heard him give Fury an order. They snapped out of it and all started moving.
Sean led the majority of the team down to the hangar, they approached a quinjet and Sean politely commandeered it. Finally Cap returned with the two agents. "Good. Barton, you're flying. Load up, people."
Fitting nine people into a quinjet isn't a difficult feat, but when those people are in a variety of armor and all have weapons it's a little tighter. Sean had a thought and opened a portal to his armory. He pulled five of his new handguns out, passing two each to Widow and Ava and one to Barton. Making a mental note to look at improving Ava's armor.
"Those are repulsor guns, 100 shots each. Make it count." All three nodded and slipped them into extra holsters Sean handed them.
The flight to New York took all of twenty minutes but it felt like an eternity. They arrived to find a scene of utter chaos. It looked like Fury's warning had some effect as the emergency services were already trying to rush people out of the area.
'Here goes nothing,' Sean thought to himself.
LINE BREAK
Just like in the movie they swooped in and helped Stark take out a few of the chariots that the Chitauri rode. When they went up to confront Loki he blasted one of their engines and they made an emergency landing. Once they all scrambled out of the jet they regrouped in front of the Grand Central Terminal.
As they looked up toward Stark tower they could easily make out the portal that was pouring Chitauri into their atmosphere. With a loud groan a massive armored worm came through next, the first of many Sean knew. It passed overhead, launching more Chitauri warriors from its sides onto the nearby buildings.
"Stark, you seeing this?" Cap asked Tony.
"Seeing. Still working on believing. You got Banner down there?"
Sean stepped in at this point, "Yeah he's here. Front of Grand Central."
"Tell him to suit up, I'm bringing the party to you." Tony rounded a corner several blocks away from them and was swiftly followed by the Leviathan, both flying straight at the gathered heroes.
"I-I don't see how that's a party." Widow actually sounded nervous at the size of the beast.
"Doc, do your thing." Sean gave a nod to Banner. The unassuming man strode forward.
"Now might be a good time to get angry," Cap stepped forward with a little concern.
"That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry." As he turned back to meet the Leviathan, Bruce began growing and turning green. With a roar Hulk punched the worm right in the face causing its armor to buckle and its tail to rise.
"I gotcha," Came Rhodey's voice as he shot a missle into the side of it. The missile slipped between the armor and exploded, killing the beast and dropping it to the side. Thor, Tony, and Rhodey all came in for a landing. The twelve members of the team circled up as the Chitauri started screaming.
Natasha was the first to notice the rest of the Leviathans coming through the portal and warned them with a soft, "Guys."
Everyone looked up at the incoming horde in horrified awe for a moment before turning to Sean. It appears that they were waiting for his orders now. Makes sense considering he personally brought half the team to the fight. He would've tried to bring more but other than the sorcerers he couldn't remember who all was active at this time.
"Alright, we need to focus on getting as many civilians out as possible and keep the fight centered on us. Hawkeye, Falcon, you're our eyes in the sky. Get high and call everything out, patterns, civvies, anything. Stark, Rhodey, I want you guys running the perimeter. Keep everything close in, if you can't kill it then drive it back this way.
"Ghost, Widow, get up to that device and see if you can figure something out to close it. Panther, Cap, work outwards from here. Try to get as many people out as you can and draw those assholes back here, work with the cops when you can. Thor, get up to the portal and fry as many as you can. After that work with whichever group needs help.
"Sif, you and I will hold this spot. We make as much trouble as we can to bring the fight here. Hopefully everyone else can help to bring us more." Sean fired out orders as fast as he could. Cap's plan in the movie worked well, but since they had more people Sean wanted to flesh it out a bit.
Turning to the big green man in their midst Sean said, "And Hulk, Smash." He couldn't resist using the line. With a grin and another roar Hulk leapt away, latching onto a building and crushing a Chitauri before moving on to its friends.
That seemed to be the signal as the rest of the group jumped into action. Sam grabbed Barton as he, Rhodey, Stark, and Thor all launched into the air. Panther and Cap ran in opposite directions to find people to help.
Before she moved away with Widow, Ava laid a hand on Sean's arm, "Be careful." Her voice was soft, and she didn't give him a chance to respond as the two operatives ran in the direction of Stark tower.
As the Chitauri began moving in their direction Sean turned to Sif, "Shall we?"
A wide grin and a, "For Asgard!" were his answer. The pair of them dove into the fight with relish.
Sean used his flames from the bottom of his feet to boost him the short distance to his first opponent. A punch to the face and a kick to the chest put him out of commission. The next one came in with his weapon raised so Sean swept the aliens legs out from under him and slammed a fist into his chest as he fell.
The fight continued for what felt like hours. Every time they caught their breath one of the others would come in leading another group of aliens. Whenever he could, Sean made sure to drop bodies and tech into his Fortress, but he kept most of his focus on the fight since there would be plenty of time during the cleanup to get more. He used his flames to augment his kicks and punches, acting as thrusters from his elbows and the backs of his feet.
Individually the Chitauri were no more of a threat than the average human, but they had numbers on their side. One would die, only for two more to jump into the fight. Sean only barely listened to the callouts from Falcon and Barton, most were for the others to deal with. They only really called for Sean or Sif to let them know more were coming at them. He stopped counting after the fourth wave.
By the end he was sweating, covered in grime, and bleeding from a few small scrapes. He hadn't been injured too badly by anything, just some bumps and bruises. Sif was in a similar state, though she seemed to be more winded than he was. Probably the boost he got from the Extremis virus.
At long last though he heard Widow's voice over the radio, "I can close it, does anyone copy?"
Sean waited a moment, expecting Stark to chime in that the nuke was on its way but he didn't. In fact Sean saw him fly overhead moving off to another part of midtown. "Do it," he ordered. Hopefully there wasn't a missile on the way, or at least if there was they could come up with another solution.
Fortunately the portal closed with no further surprises. The moment it did all of the Chitauri and Leviathan dropped like puppets with their strings cut. It seemed like even though the mother ship wasn't destroyed they still couldn't receive a signal without the portal to act as a relay.
"Did anyone else's aliens just drop dead?" Stark wondered aloud over the comms. Everyone reported back that it was the case all over the city.
Sean piped up, "Good. Anyone have eyes on Loki?"
"He's in Stark's penthouse," Barton was the one who answered, "I'm pretty sure Hulk paid him a visit."
"He kinda deserved it. Anyway let's regroup there, jobs not done yet." Sean ordered, a nod of his head to Sif and they both headed for the tower. He felt like he could sleep for a week after this, but he knew it was only the beginning.
Now they had to deal with what came next. The press and public would be all over them, some condemning and some thanking. It would be a heated debate, but Sean had a few ideas on how to help smooth things over.
People would want to have some level of power and control over the Avengers. Most because of fear, but there would be several who wanted to use them for personal gain. Sean wouldn't tolerate that, nor would he let hate mongers stir up trouble because of their envy or whatever.
If all else failed, he would leave the Avengers and warn the world as a whole of the threats to come. He would rather detonate the world political scene than leave people unprepared for when Thanos came knocking.
While Sean planned to take the Mind Stone hidden in the scepter and the Space Stone in the Tesseract, that still left the Time Stone on Earth. Thanos would come for it eventually, and hopefully they would be ready. Otherwise, there'd be a lot less people around to complain.
AN: Sorry if the Battle of New York is a bit short. I don't have the confidence to write that big of a scene and do it full justice, no way would mine be better than the original anyway. I also feel like that particular scene has been done to death and we've seen it hundreds of times now.
Let me know what you think!