"We could really use you with the air fleet," Steve argued. Natasha's eyes moved between Thor and Steve as though she was watching a tennis match, and so far, the Captain was losing. "I understand that you need to—"

"I will gladly lend my hand wherever it is needed," Thor said for the tenth time that morning, his words changing slightly every time, "but my priority is to see to my brother's welfare first, and then I will go where I'm needed."

"There's a surplus of fighters in Manhattan." She could hear the strain in Steve's voice. He hadn't slept all night, but she figured he didn't need the extra hours of shuteye like the rest of them. The underground bunker was quiet that morning: the pathways beneath the city swelled with military personnel and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents alike, all moving to their coordinated areas across the boroughs. Once Staten Island was secure, Natasha was in charge of moving air force personnel out to an airbase on the mainland, where dormant S.H.I.E.L.D. planes would deliver packages of the serum from the production plant up north—and then it was onward and outward.

Steve's men had even managed to find some old crop-duster airplanes to load up with Stark's serum, and with air support from British fighter jets—courtesy of Thor's contacts overseas—and other local machines, they'd work their way across the state, dousing rural and urban communities with the gas. She hadn't initially been privy to the information, but she forced it out of Steve after she arrived at the Brooklyn base with Thor and his women. Her glare had been enough to get Steve both talking and switching things around so she could have a bigger part to play during the attack—and that was exactly what she wanted.

After all, she had very little faith in the people working around her who weren't on her crew initially, and she'd rather do the job herself than put it in the hands of others. Steve had enough to do today. He had a few higher ups partitioning off the workload, but Natasha would have gladly taken it on herself. Thor, however, seemed more interested in getting to Loki than he did in playing a role in the rest of the day's operations.

She had watched the two men bicker for the better part of an hour now. Jane Foster appeared at one point, clad in her pajamas and sleep-tussled hair, but eventually slunk off to the kitchen when it was clear that neither man planned to back down.

A quick glance at her watch told her that it was quarter to five. Daylight was still a few hours away, and noon seemed like an eternity. She wasn't sure why they picked such an obvious time for an attack, and she assumed the alien army would be out in full gear by that time of the day, but perhaps that was what they wanted. As long as no one expected a gas attack, things might actually be over fairly quickly with minimal bloodshed. She had no idea how all this played out with Tony when he first did it, but he seemed to have left everyone under the impression that the South American continent was thriving, just cut off from the rest of the world.

Steve had given her a demonstration of the gas compound on a captive alien: the response was fast, but not as fast as she would have thought. Almost three minutes ticked by until the alien died. She could have done with that in Colombo.

"You are not sending any of your warriors to Loki's location," Thor argued, arms folded and feet planted. Steve paced this morning, but not hurriedly: he lumbered back and forth across the once bustling brain-center of the bunker. Desks abandoned. People gone. Monitors clicking and beeping on without their masters present.

"Because there are more… special individuals there." Steve sighed. It wasn't quite the exasperated one Natasha expected, but she knew he was going to compromise for a beneficial solution long before Thor would. "The Fantastic Four and Spiderman have been working with the underground police force. It's a different situation in Manhattan."

"I have given much of my time and energy to this cause when I had no reason to." Something caught her attention, like a spoon clinking against a bowl, and Natasha spotted Jane Foster shuffling back to her room with breakfast in hand. "I could have left Earth to its ruin, but I stayed to defend it because I hold it very dear."

"And we're thankful for that—"

"So, when I tell you that I wish to attend to my brother first, you will respect my decision."

"Yes, of course, but we—"

"And you will agree that my decision is final."

The two men stared at one another, Asgardian and Super Soldier, until Steve finally nodded. "Yes, of course."

Natasha hid her smirk, knowing that Steve needed her support these days more than anything. Still, it was nice to see that the boys were able to play nice with each other, even after being apart for nearly two years. Thor clapped Steve on the shoulder with such force that if he had hit Natasha like that, she was sure her bones would have splintered. Still, Steve returned the Asgardian's beaming grin with one of his own, one that didn't quire reach his eyes, but Natasha knew was genuine all the same.

"Thank you, my friend." Thor gave him a little jostle, and then stepped around him. "I will lend a hand wherever I am needed, but only after I have finished with Loki."

"Thank you."

They exchanged one final look of understanding, and then Thor disappeared in the direction of Jane's room, leaving Natasha and Steve alone in the middle of an empty bunker—a quiet bunker. It wasn't an hour ago, and it wouldn't be in an hour's time when the second wave of soldiers woke up. Abigail Brand and her crew would be among them, and Natasha wanted to go over a few things with the green-haired woman before they parted ways. That, however, would probably be done through their private telecom.

"What's the point in having him here if he isn't going to listen?" She heard Steve muttering to himself once Thor disappeared, and she leaned back against a desk scattered with papers and folders and empty mugs.

"I think we've been trying to control him for too long," she mused. Steve looked up at her, and she shrugged. "I mean, he was bound to rebel at some point. I'd rather him have a disagreement over this than something that actually matters."

"This does matter—"

"Of course it does," she said sharply, "but what really matters is that Thor is still our ally. He didn't storm off in a huff, and he'll be out there fighting. We have enough men to cover all our bases without him."

Steve was silent for a moment, and then chuckled. "I could have used you a few months ago."

"I had bigger fish to fry than playing buffer between you and other people," she told him, arching an eyebrow when he grinned. "I should get going."

"Sure."

"My guys are already waiting in the sub."

"I know."

Their eyes met, and Natasha fiddled with the Tasers built into her gloves. Steve's gaze broke first, hands on his hips and eyes on the floor.

"Look after yourself out there."

"I always do," she said.

"Don't forget that they came in with a few Chitauri warriors." She stiffened at the thought, and then shook her head.

"That won't be a problem."

"We don't know where they are."

"That still won't be a problem." A few Chitauri were nothing. Natasha had killed a few Chitauri with her bare hands before, and she'd happily do it again.

They shook hands briefly afterward, though she assumed he wanted to go in for another hug by the way his arms flinched upward. They didn't part ways with a hug. They left with a firm handshake and a smile, and Natasha realized she was still smiling by the time she reached the sub, soaked to the bone and shivering with adrenaline.

"I know it's early," Sue chuckled, gently prying the pillow away from Franklin. He had buried himself under it as soon as she turned the lights on, grumbling about the time, "but it's going to be that kind of a day."

"Mommy?"

Valeria stood in the doorway, rubbing her eyes and dressed in the absurd Katy Perry pajamas she had forced Sue to buy her for Christmas. Her hair was in tangles, but they were endearing in a way only a mother could love. She held out a hand, and Valeria shuffled toward her, yawning.

"Good morning," she murmured, kissing her daughter's cheek. She then turned her attention back to Franklin, and a few well-aimed pokes to the side roused him fully, his giggles making the pillow shake. He threw the thing to the end of his bed, sighing. Heavy circles lined his eyes, and she knew she had put the kids to bed too late last night to be waking them up this early, but she didn't care. She needed this time with them—just a few minutes of quiet before she went to war.

"You're in your uniform." She felt Valeria tug at the tailored blue outfit, one that Reed had designed to turn invisible along with the rest of her. It could withstand Johnny's heat and Ben's strength. It was perfect.

She hated wearing it.

"I am," she said, nodding as she pulled Valeria onto her lap. "We need to have a very important talk about what's going to happen today."

"You're going to be the Invisible Woman."

"Yes." Franklin sat up, his giggles gone and his face set in a frown. "Yes, I am."

"And Uncle Johnny will be the Human Torch."

"Yes."

"And Daddy will be Mr. Fantastic."

"We all have a part to play." She went to work on one of the smaller tangles, needing to keep her hands busy, to keep them from shaking. "You know how we haven't been able to leave home for a little while?"

"Because of the aliens," Franklin muttered sourly. His knees had curled up to his chest, shoulders rolled forward.

"Well, today we are going to finally get rid of the aliens," she told them. The tangle came free after some careful maneuvering. Valeria sat perfectly still, her hands in her lap. "Our friends need some help."

"But you said our friends would take care of them," Franklin interjected. "You said—"

"It's been difficult for everyone," she said gently. Sue touched his foot, stroking the smooth skin with her thumb. "There are too many aliens now, and it would be unfair of us to stay quiet anymore when we can do something."

"How?" Valeria finally flinched when Sue tried to tackle a bigger knot, and she adjusted her approach.

"We have a special gas that's going to make them go to sleep," Sue told them. "It's going to be very quick, and then we're going to help all the prisoners around the city."

"Will you be home tonight?" Franklin looked hopeful for a moment, and Sue smiled.

"We're going to try."

Valeria seemed unconvinced, and while Franklin's smile was fleeting at best, she knew there wasn't much she could say to make her children see the good in things—especially if she couldn't see it for herself. She licked her lips, forcing a broad smile across them, and then stopped her work on the latest knot.

"Max is going to stay with you today while we're out," she assured them. "I want to see all your homework done, and then you can have the rest of the afternoon to yourself."

There was so much to do that morning. It was barely pushing seven, and she still needed to gather her bombs and situate herself in Central Park without being detected. Before that, however, she planned to make the kids breakfast—whatever they wanted. She'd then put them up in their rooms, give them some work and junk food to keep themselves busy, and then she'd be gone.

Reed should have been here. He should have come with her to wake them up, to share these precious few moments before the day turned to chaos. She inhaled deeply, swallowing her resentment, and then forced her smile back up.

"Are you excited to spend the day with Max?"

Franklin nodded. She wasn't sure how she could thank Max for doing this. Babysitting might have seemed like the most insignificant job of the day, but to Sue, it was the only one that really mattered. If Max hadn't been here, one of the four would have had to stay behind, and the plan would have been faulty. Max let them be at the full strength. She was going to watch over Sue's most precious possessions, and there was no greater task than that in this world.

"We're going to be fine today," she said after a silence settled. "It'll be really quick and clean, and we'll all have dinner tonight. What do you want for dinner?"

"Hamburgers!" Franklin replied, his enthusiasm reaching his eyes at last. It was infectious, and Sue laughed as she hugged Valeria to her. She wasn't sure what had changed, but over the last month and a half, Franklin's eating habits had shot off the charts. He was trying new things, emulating Loki's plate whenever he had the chance. He hadn't asked for Kraft Dinner in almost a week.

"Of course. I'll tell Daddy to take them out of the freezer."

She'd tell Daddy a number of things when she saw him next.

"With goat cheese?" Valeria asked, her voice soft and small. Sue kissed her the side of her head, lingering there for a moment. Honestly, where did this kid come up with this stuff?

"Anything you want."

She hugged the girl closer, and then beckoned for Franklin to join them. He crawled across the bed and sat in the crook of her arm, too old to be seen sitting on his mom's lap with any dignity. The silence fell again, and this time Sue had to blink rapidly to keep her vision free from tears. Sniffling, she kissed them both, and then straightened up with a heavy sigh.

"So," she started brightly, "what do you want for breakfast? We have some chocolate chips left… Maybe pancakes?"

Her duo cheered, and she sent them off use the bathroom and wash their little faces. When they were gone, she buried her head in her hands, shoulders shaking and chest heaving.

"I almost feel like there should be epic music blasting through a PA system or something."

"Max—"

"I mean, don't you feel like there needs to be epic music?"

"Max—"

"Maybe I should have taken a shot."

"What? No—"

"No, I know, that would be bad, but I still feel like a need one."

Loki let out a lengthy sigh behind her, and she readjusted the rifle's strap on her shoulder. She wasn't sure where all this energy came from: she had been miserable waking up at six that morning. Getting dressed was a blur, breakfast was basically forgotten. But then the rest of the tower started to show up in their battle gear: Spiderman's red and blue, the Fantastic Four decked out to the nines, and Loki as a traditional warrior. It was a sight to be seen, particularly when they all hunched around the kitchen island over pancakes and fought over the last remnants of the syrup and jam.

It was twenty to noon, and the rest of the tower was basically empty. Peter and Johnny disappeared into the sewers first, off to rally the underground troops and dispense the boxes of gas canisters. Sue and Reed left next after taking some time away with the kids. They said their goodbyes, and then vanished right before Max's eyes. Franklin and Valeria, meanwhile, were tucked safely up on their floor, left with a mountain of academic exercises to do while the city was under siege.

After loading her rifle and pocketing a clip of spare bullets, Max and Loki made their way for the roof. Ben waited down in the lobby, ready to take out the tank that usually followed the convertible around the city. It was happening. She knew it was going to happen that day, but even as she went to bed last night, nothing had seemed real by any stretch. She knew she was going to start a war that morning, but it didn't occur to her until they were halfway up the stairs that it was happening now.

While the rest of the heroes might have been stressed yesterday, they were much better today. The tension had lessened, and Johnny seemed to appreciate her enthusiasm, even amping it up with jokes and witty banter. She had hugged Peter before he left, and he promised to swing by if there was time.

"What do you do before a big fight?" she asked, whirling around to face him. Loki leaned out of the way to avoid the swinging riffle's nozzle, and then shook his head at her.

"Nothing in particular," he mused. He hopped up two steps so that they could walk next to one another, and she slid her sweaty palm in his, needing its coolness to steady her. "I usually go over my plan of attack with trusted cohorts."

"So, let's go over it."

"We've been over it more than enough." She leaned into him when he kissed her temple, a sharp peck that almost threw her off-balance. "We should focus on getting everything set up."

Max fiddled with Peter's cuffs. She wasn't sure why she had bothered with them that morning, but she had a weird—probably delusional—theory that they would help keep her wrists and hands steady before the final shot. She wasn't a sniper. She was a shooter, yes, and she knew more about the logistics of the gun on her arm than she did about shooting it effectively. Her excitement easily translated into nerves, and she could feel her heart hammering in her chest.

She almost wanted to throw up. Her breakfast had been light to account for that, but those two pancakes were swirling something fierce in there.

"Do you ever want to puke?"

"In general, or…?" He chuckled when Max shot him a narrowed look, and his hand tightened around hers. "It is perfectly normal to feel sickly before something like this."

"And fainty?"

"Please… don't pass out before you take the shot."

"I won't." She knew she wouldn't, but the more she thought about it, the more her energy started to transform into something negative. "Distract me."

"With what?"

"Anything." Two more floors to go until they were on the roof. Her breathing started to quicken.

"When all this is over," Loki started. He let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her inside, their legs moving in tandem up each step. "When all this is done and Earth is victorious, I'm going to take you somewhere."

"Yeah?"

"Somewhere private and relaxing," he continued. Max glanced up at the curve of his horns. "Anywhere you desire. Just you and I."

"I like the sound of that." The response was automatic, but it was a lie. She didn't want to disappear when this was over. She wanted to see her parents. She wanted to find Garret and Tiffany and Pat and Ben and Corey. She wanted to see the city rebuilt. She wanted normalcy again, not more disparity in some foreign country with white-sand beaches and clear blue waters.

"Perhaps I'll take you off Earth." His voice was soft now, barely above a whisper. "There is a whole universe to see… More beauty than you can imagine."

"Yeah, maybe," she replied absently. Max came back into focus when he pinched her side, and even though she swatted at him, she was grateful too: her breathing had slowed, her palms felt less sweaty.

"Have I provided adequate distraction?"

She stopped on the top level of the tower, standing before the security pad and the door to the roof. Turning to face him, she gripped him by the hard leather on the front of his uniform, and then leaned up to kiss him. It wasn't a particularly deep or emotional kiss. He held her by the back of her head, and they stood like that for only a few seconds, lips pressed together firmly and eyes shut.

"Yes." She smiled and touched his cheek briefly. "Thank you."

He gestured toward the door. "Shall we?"

Max nodded and punched in the door code. There was a soft buzz when it unlocked, and Loki pushed through first. She followed him into the short tunnel, ducking through the door on the other side. At the sound of a helicopter somewhere in the immediate vicinity, Loki dropped down. Max quickly did the same, hiding her rifle as best she could. The whumping sounds soon disappeared, but she waited for Loki to assess the situation before standing up.

"Go," he told her. Max hurried to the side of the building where they always saw the convertible putter by, and quickly set up the tripod on the edge. She used her shirt to clean the telescope, and then worked on situating herself comfortably behind the gun itself. It would have been better if she could lay flat: her legs felt unstable, but she knew they'd hold.

"You don't have a weapon," she noted. Five minutes to go, according the clock Peter installed on her left wrist brace. Loki paced behind her, and then set his hands on her shoulders.

"You're too tense."

"What are you going to use to fight?"

"My hands at first," he said in her ear. She tried to relax as his hands worked her shoulders, his thumbs digging into all the knots they found. "But I can transform a weapon I acquire from the enemy into one more suited for me."

"Such as?"

There was a short pause. "I fight well with sceptres of varying sizes."

"Oh." She wasn't sure what else to say. The car would be here soon. The sun was too bright—but at least it was at her back. The wind wasn't terrible, but she knew she'd need to somehow account for it.

"Max."

She leaned in to peer through the telescope, and then rotated the gun in both directions, getting a feel for its mobility.

"Max."

"Yes?"

"Don't shoot Carl."

Her throat felt dry. She looked back at Loki quickly, brows furrowed, and then straightened up and shrugged his hands up.

"What?"

"Kill his driver," he told her, cupping her face. She wanted to pull away, but she couldn't. "Kill his driver and I'll take it from there."

"But…" But that was her job. Her duty was to kill Carl and start the revolution. She said she'd do it. She had pictured doing it, stressed over it, and today she was finally going to get the image out of her mind. "But, I…"

"I have complete faith in you, my sweet," he whispered, leaning down to press his forehead to hers. The metal rim of his helmet was hard against her skin—heavy. "But, my sweetest lady, you have no confidence in yourself."

"I… I do." She licked her lips, shaking her head. "I can do it."

"He's too important to the cause for anything to go awry," Loki continued. He stroked her cheeks slowly, soothingly. "And if you do hit him, the driver will speed away, and Ben and I will need to pursue them. Kill the driver, and I'll see to everything else."

"But my job is—"

"The driver will be closer to you." His voice was enthralling in that moment, and Max nodded. "He'll be an easier target."

"I guess…"

"I will take the brunt of Carl's death on my shoulders." She tilted her head back to take his kiss, her head in a bit of a whirlwind. "Let that burden go."

She nibbled her lower lip when he released her. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I wanted to see you through to the last moment, but I can see it in you," he told her. "I can see the fear, and there is no shame in it."

"But—"

"Ready yourself." He darted away from her and leaned over the edge of the building, and Max almost jabbed herself in the eye in her haste to look through the telescope. There it was. There was the damn convertible rolling down the street. There were civilians too, just regular ol' aliens meandering on the sidewalk, and she wondered if any noticed Ben lurking in the destroyed lobby downstairs.

Her fingers trembled, but one founds its way to the trigger. She took a few deep breaths, in and out and in and out. She couldn't get through a single one without shaking, but they had the desired effect. Calm—or some semblance of it anyway.

"Do you have him in your sight?"

"Give me a minute." The driver was in the front seat—obviously—and Carl lounged behind, his arms outstretched on either side of him and his head tossed back. A few tufts of his perfectly smoothed hair fluttered in the breeze, and he wore a pair of aviators. The driver, meanwhile, wore a black military uniform and considerably less stylish sunglasses. If she had to guess, they were maybe going five miles an hour—maybe. It'd be an easy shot if that kept up.

"Max?"

"I've got him." She fixed on the driver's head, moving along steadily with him. Her eyes flickered down to her watch. Noon on the dot.

"Max?"

"Just… wait," she hissed. The car crept along directly in front of her, moving from right to left unhurriedly.

"You will need to shoot sometime—"

"Loki, shut up!" She took in a small gasp of air, held it, and then as she released it, she slowly pressed the trigger. The bullet shot out almost soundlessly, slicing through the air with beautiful precision. Seconds later, the driver's head splattered across the windshield, black ooze everywhere. Max figured she nailed him somewhere at the base of the skull. The car swiveled and stopped, its tires screeching.

"Get inside," Loki shouted as he leapt over the tower's edge. Max, gasping and shaking and heart pounding, leaned forward and watched him fall.

Was it acceptable to puke yet?

The freefall was over before it started. Loki landed squarely on his feet, denting the concrete below. The hole would have come up to a man's knees, but he leapt out of it with ease. His first target was the footsoldier encroaching on him. A pulse of magic knocked the creature off its feet, and a bullet to the face finished the job. Uninterested in the man's weapon, Loki transformed it into a replica of his old sceptre, with a razor sharp blade at the end, a groove for his hands, and a weight behind it that would shatter a human's bones.

Before he could swing for the next warrior, the alien fell, black blood spurting out of its human chest. The same went for the other fighter, and Loki looked up with a grin, pleased to see that his woman was so good with her aim. The tank rolled forward, its gun swinging toward him with mechanical clicks and whirs, but Ben saw to that. The creature shot out from the tower's lobby and slammed into the side of the green tanker vehicle. The sheer force behind the blow knocked it onto its side, and Loki watched his companion's rocky form clamber over and get to work on the hatch. Screams followed, and then there was nothing.

Carl.

He turned his attention to the Pagurolid in the handsome human suit. He was running—a full-tilt sprint down the street, forsaking his vehicle. How foolish. He didn't get far before a bullet pierced one of his legs, and Loki glanced back to Max as he stalked the distance between him and his fallen foe. She could stop now. He wanted her inside before any eyes in the sky spotted her, and he also wanted to be the one to deliver the death blow to the creature who brought him here in chains.

He was grateful that she stepped aside so easily, lulled into a false sense of comfort by a few careful words and a soothing tone. Loki had no intention of hurting her or damaging whatever ego she may have cultivated around her deeds for the day, but Carl was his—he always had been.

A replica version of himself appeared in front of Carl as he tried to crawl away, leering down at the creature as he approached. The man-suit managed to get up on one leg, hopping away from the holographic enemy. Loki jogged toward it now, and he watched it pull a gun from its jacket. Two shots straight through the replica. Loki willed it away. With the fake vanishing before its eyes, Carl turned back just in time for Loki to deliver a blow to its face with the bottom of his sceptre.

Carl staggered back with a grunt, black liquid dribbling from its nose as it fell to the ground.

"You made an unfortunate error bringing me into this," Loki remarked. Carl touched a hand to its nose, and then tried to crawl away. "Your people made a mess of this little realm, and they made my lady cry. Do you know what I'm going to do to you?"

"This isn't the end," Carl croaked. That voice—the voice that brought him out of his hole amidst the torture and the terror—made his skin crawl. "My colony is but one moving through this universe… Kill us now, and someday, years or centuries from now, more will come."

"Ah, yes, but you see…" Loki crouched down, the blade resting on the hollow of the creature's throat. "You see, I won't be here by then, and that's all I really care about."

The creature opened its mouth, lips curving upward, but before it could hiss out another word, Loki jammed the sceptre's blade deep into its throat. He pushed until he touched the pavement on the other side, listening to Carl's dying gasps with thinly veiled glee.

Still, the creature inside would continue to live for a few moments, even with the suit tarnished. So, Loki made short work of the chest cavity, slicing and dicing and wrenching bone aside until he reached the little ugly Pagurolid who controlled the human. It was gasping, its little eyes squinting in the sunlight. Loki took it by the throat, his hands coated in black, and hauled it unceremoniously from the body.

The squealing was horrendous, and Loki wrinkled his nose at the sound—and smell. The creature would be dead soon, unable to survive outside its host body for long, but Loki wanted it to suffer one last time. He set his sceptre aside, leaning it against the car in which the Carl creature drove around in every day to survey his new empire. Then, taking the Pagurolid in both hands, he rammed it down on the car's antenna, which bent a little at first, but still managed to pierce the creature's soft belly when Loki held it steady. When he stepped back, he watched the vermin slide down to the hood of the car.

The squealing stopped. He wished he felt more satisfied.

"All done?" Ben's voice broke his thoughts, and he looked up at the creature with an arched eyebrow.

"Yes, I believe I am."

"Good." He caught the three bags that the rocky cretin threw at him, and dozens of canisters clanked together inside. "We got deliveries to make."

"Yes, I believe we do," he muttered, shouldering the straps easily. Before falling in behind Ben, who moved faster than Loki would have ever given him credit for, he looked up to see if Max had witnessed his final act with Carl. The end of her gun was gone, probably retracted, and he hoped she had been spared his carnage.

"Let's move!"

He caught up quickly, his strides long and smooth. They stopped two streets over at a subway entrance, one that dropped down below the sidewalk. Men and women poured out of it, splitting between Ben and Loki to get a canister each. Many already had weapons hanging off them: clubs, bats, guns here and there.

"Thanks man," one said as he fished a metallic canister out of Loki's bag. The cluster, which Loki counted to be about twenty people in total, split off into little groups of five, and Loki assumed they all had their own plans for the day. Five individuals stayed behind with Ben and Loki, and when the pair jogged down to the next drop-off point, they followed behind.

On one of the larger avenues, warriors in black armor charged them, and Loki gritted his teeth, his sceptre clanging against the iron gate in front of a narrow house. However, before he could charge them, Ben lobbed a grenade down the street, and it exploded into a cloud of gas as soon as it hit the ground. The warriors made it another few steps before collapsing into coughing fits, weapons dropped and eyes bulging.

Cheers sounded behind him from their followers, but Loki let out an irritated sigh. He wanted a little bloodshed. He wanted to see the gutters lined with black and the streets smeared with it. As the men rushed forward to grab the fallen Pagurolid weapons, Loki met Ben's eye. The creature rustled the bag over his shoulder.

"The point is to minimize the violence," he rumbled, seeing through Loki's forced calm. "Don't forget it."

"All my violence would be aimed at them."

"Just do the job we were given."

"You're lucky I'm doing it at all."

"Well, you're doin' it for her." They held one another's gaze for a moment, and then broke away when a clamor arose down the street. Gunfire. "Do what you're supposed to do."

"I am doing it," Loki hissed as they took off toward the source of the sound. "You can't tell me you don't want to have a little fun on the job?"

"I just want to get the job over with…"

A bullet bounced off Ben's shoulder, chipping a bit of the rocky exterior, and the creature groaned. Before he could react, Loki hurled his sceptre at the alien warrior who shot him, impaling it through its chest plate. There. That was a little satisfying. He stalked toward the fallen body to retrieve his weapon, and then sprayed four more alien civilians who scattered out of the way in the process. They fell one by one around him, twitching and coughing and gasping, and Loki kicked one of their hands away when it clawed at his foot.

Their eyes bugged out at him. He wasn't sure how this was any less traumatic for the humans involved, but it wasn't his place to object anymore. The war had begun, and a swift victory was on the horizon.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

SO. IT HAS BEGUN.

This battle update is probably going to last for the next month, but I'm tryinnnggg to get updates out as fast as I can so we're not bogged down in everything for too long. I originally wanted to write it in two chapters. However, once I wrote out all the POV sections I wanted to include, it felt better in three chapters. HOWEVER, this chapter would have had another FIVE sections to it, and I think the word count would have been over 10,000 at least. I think it's difficult to sit through something that long, and I'm trying hard not to write updates that long anymore. So, I'm not trying to needlessly add to my chapter lengths or fish for more reviews or whatever. I'm genuinely thinking of you guys and how I get sick of updates that go on for waaay too long and sometimes tune out.

That being said, I haven't written the second half of what would have been in this chapter yet. I was going to work on it over the next few days, then publish it all at once. However, I figured I'd break it up. I'm not taking a break though. I'm literally going to update with this chapter and then get straight back to work, so hopefully you'll see another update before the end of the week.

I don't have too much to say here because nothing much has really happened. … aside from Loki being a little fucked with Carl. But, hey, revenge is a little fucked to begin with.

Also, Radioactive by Imagine Dragons and Swine by Lady Gaga have been my anthems for the battle chapters for months now.

ONWARD I GO TO WRITE. SEE YOU SOON, DEARIES!