"EDI? What's going on?" Eddie asked as he headed back into the penthouse.
"Could you be a little more specific?" The Modified Jarvis replied.
"In New York! What's exploding in the city E.D.I.?" Eddie asked as he ran to his closet while removing his black tie.
"I am unsure." The Enhansed Defence Intelligence replied.
"Well use Stark Tower to find out. Also power up the suit." Eddie ordered as he removed his suit jacket.
"Authorisation required." E.D.I informed.
"Authorisation: Mike, Oscar, Romeo, Romeo, Alpha." Eddie shouted as he zipped up a skin tight suit of Kull cloth that he'd salvaged from a hidden compartment in his Tel'tak.
"Sercurity code required." Alteron replied.
"Code: Victor, Sierra, One, Nine, Six, Nine." Eddie recites as he heads back into his penthouse's lounge.
"Access granted." E.D.I. informed.
"Well?" Eddie asked as several holographic screens filled the room. Each showed a different section of the city, but all were filled with the chaos of battle. Craters from weapons fire, scortch marks and fires all indicated that a violent battle was taking place.
"I have full access to Stark Mainframe." E.D.I. replied.
"Spill it, E." Eddie said as he reviewed several screens while dismissing others.
"Project Tesseract was stolen from SHIELD several days ago by Loki, a norse god from Asgard. The Avengers were activated in response to the threat Loki posed, after he somehow brainwashed several top agents infront of Director Fury. Mr. Stark has been working with the first batch of candidates for the Avengers Initiative." E.D.I. explained.
"What does this have to do with New York?" Eddie asked, looking over the files on the first group to be enroled in the Avengers.
"A log update would indicate that Loki has bought the Tesseract here in order to use Stark Tower's Arc reactor to feul a 'portal' for his army to come through." E replied.
"Can you shut down the reactor?" Eddie asked as he deactivated the holographic screens.
"It does not matter, the Tesseract is completely self sustaining. Nothing I can do will stop it." E.D.I. informed.
"Alright, bring Alteron online. We're going to help the Avengers." Eddie smiled.
"Yes sir." The Enhanced Defence Intelligence said, accepting the command.
Captain America, the dubbed leader of the Avengers, stood looking at the five members of the team. Stark, Hulk, Agent Barton, Agent Romanoff and Thor were all waiting for his orders.
"Call it Captain." Ironman ordered.
"Alright listen up, until we can close that portal, our priority is containment. Barton, I want you up on that roof, eyes on everything, call out patterns. Stark, you have the perimiter, anything that gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or turn it to ash." Rogers informed.
"Wanna give me a lift?" Barton asked.
"Right, better clench up Legolas." Ironman joked as he grabbed Barton and flew off into the sky.
"Thor, you gotta try and bottleneck that portal, slow them down. You got the lightening, light the bastards up." The Captain ordered. Thor nodded and swung his hammer and zoomed off into the air.
"You and me, we stay on the ground, keep the fighting here." Rogers explained to Romanoff.
"And Hulk, smash." Captain America said while pointing upwards. The green menace smiled a wicked smile and jumped at the Chitauri attacked to the buildings. He swung punch after punch while clinging onto the building, causing bricks and dead Chitauri to fall to the pavement several stories below. The last thing Rogers and Romanoff saw was the Hulk jumping off a building and disappearing into the setting suns blare.
"Could you use another hand?" A strange synthesised voice asked from behind. Natasha and Steve turned to find Stark hovering a few meters away. But it wasn't Tony, the armour was completely different. Instead of the red and gold armour that Stark wore, this new suit was comprised of the colours gold and white. Identical to the Mk2 armour that WarMachine wore, this suit lacked the minigun attachment.
"Who are you?" Natasha asked as the suit landed.
"I? I am Alteron." The suit replied.
"I've never heard of you." Romanoff said, conserned.
"Above your paygrade." Alteron replied.
"Well, as long as your here to help, we can use you." Rogers nodded.
"Welcome to the team." Natasha smiled.
"Thank you." Alteron nodded.
"You can help Ironman. His objective it to keep everything inside of a three block radius." Steve informed.
"Very well." Alteron nodded before flying off.
Alteron was zooming though the city with Ironman. The two were constantly using each other to take some of the Chitauri heat off of themselves. The upgraded Ironman platform, Alteron, was perfoming better than expected. Even though it was modelled on the Mk2, refinments and additions were extremely efficient.
Alteron boosted his thrusters as he turned a corner and caused a Chitauri fighter sled to plow straight into one of the many skyscrappers the city held. He then turned another corner and headed straight towards Ironman. Knowing the plan, Ironman turned to face the sky and raised his arms at Alteron.
Alteron merely aimed his palm flight stabilizers in Ironman's direction. They passed within millimeters of each other and began firing at the Chitauri that were chasing the other. A hail of fire and debris fell to the street below. They of course couldn't destroy all of them, but they did manage to dodge those that remained and flew off to different area's of the city.
Alteron landed next to Captain America and fired his repulsors at the Chitauri that were advancing on their position.
"I thought you would need a hand." Eddie informed through his suits external speakers.
"Thanks." The Captain nodded as Thor helped him up.
"Ready for another round?" Thor asked the Captain.
"Why? You getting sleepy?" Steve joked as Thor summoned his hammer.
"I can close it...Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down." Natasha's voice informed over the Radio as Alteron and Thor began fighting the renewed advance on their position.
"Do it!" Rogers orders.
"No wait." Ironman said over the same channel.
"Stark, these things are still coming." Steve replied.
"I got a nuke coming, It's gunna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it." Stark explained.
"Stark, you know that's a one way trip." The Captain said, before the channel went quiet.
"Look." Alteron said, pointing to the form of Ironman and a nuke flying up towards the portal. As the two disappeared through the gateway, relief wasn't felt, grief was.
Suddenly, their attension was caught as the advancing Chitauri dropped dead all around them. Their eyes returned to the portal and they saw as a large fireball began expanding and headed towards the doorway.
"Close it." Steve ordered, as regret and grief took ahold of his team. They had waited for as long as was safe. A small pop sounded as the Tesseract was deactivated and the portal began to lose power. The gateway rapidly closed in upon itself and was returning the blue sky to the city.
"Son of a gun." Steve smiled as he saw the form of a falling man.
"He is not slowing down." Thor informed as he began to spin his hammer. But before he or Alteron could take off, Tony was caught by the green blur that was the Hulk. The Hulk used his body as a shield for Stark as they impacted the road infront of Steve, Alteron and Thor.
The three of them ran towards them to see if Tony was alright. The Hulk got up after throwing Ironman off of him. Thor turned the metal man over and removed the face plate. Hulk and Thor backed off slightly as Rogers checked Tony.
All signs pointed to the Billionare being dead. Even Alteron couldn't detect any life. But as the Hulk let out a scream, Tony jumped in fear. His Arc reactor powered up to signal his return to life. Victorious and somehow happy, the Hulk let off a scream that would scare anyone.
"What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me, no body kissed me." Stark said, breathing heavily.
"We won." Rogers nodded and Tony lowered his head back down in releif.
"Alright, yay. Good job guys, let's not come in tomorrow, let's just take a day. You ever try Shawarma? There's a Shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't no what it is, but I want to try it." Tony explained. Rogers let out a chuckle as he realised that Stark was fine.
"We're not finished yet." Thor informed.
"And then Shawarma after." Stark agreed.
"You can take it from here." Alteron said, before flying off into the sky and disappearing from sight.
"Who was that guy?" Tony asked as Steve helped him to his feet.
"A great help." Thor nodded.