Chapter 139: Entering the Battle for New York.
The ship soared through the skies of Earth leaving a fiery trail as we descended onto the planetary surface some ways from New York, before zipping into the city proper at a low altitude.
I checked the armaments I had.
34 drones armed with disintegration beams.
Good enough for this. And an appropriate show of force.
Besides, if I needed any more, I could always portal it in some.
Orbital bombardment is also an option, so it's not like it was going to be a problem.
But still, this was a rather weak invasion force, at least compared to our strength now.
Even Star alone could have dealt with the whole thing in half the time it took the Avengers to do so.
And that is after the half hour it took us to get here in the first place!
I reflected back on my many plans here.
The first plan was simple.
My final goal was to get the infinity stones and revive Offee.
The simplest way to do that wasn't collecting the infinity stones one by one.
No. That would take too long. And I'd have to fight through hordes of enemies.
Thanos, Odin, The Kree, The Avengers, The Xandar, The Celestials.
I could kill them all if wanted to, sure but....
Ugh. No.
Too much work.
The simplest way to get all the infinity stones at once without conflict was to steal them all from the Time Variance Authority, the veritable time cops who control the timeline of the world and rule the universe like absent fathers, popping in every now and then for a quick fuck and leaving just as fast.
The thing about them was that they had been around for a long, long while. The universe in the MCU, was actually trapped in a recurring time loop that just happened to begin at the Big Bang and end with the heat death of the Universe.
And the TVA had been around for several of these loops, maintaining the timeline to be what they wanted, surviving past the end of the universe and rebooting it again like video game.
Given that, they had collected the infinity stones multiple times already!
So much so, that in their offices the infinity stones were used as paperweights!
Goddamn paperweights!
And since they don't value the infinity stones they have, and they have a fuckton of them, copies upon copies of the stones, they won't miss a couple if I steal them.
Easy peasy lemon squeazy!
I get the infinity stones and I pop right out of this world onto the next!
In a jiffy.
But there was a slight problem.
They had headquartered themselves in a pocket dimension outside the world line and it was notoriously hard to break into.
And I'm not exactly the foremost expert on world line defense.
Neither was Rick, given his willingness to just abandoned one world line for another if shit went sideways.
So he never figured out a method to break into a well defended pocket dimension outside a world line.
It was even worse because the pocket dimension wasn't an actual dimension, meaning it had no standard coordinates that I could just portal into.
If I put in the effort I could maybe brute force my way into it, sure, but that avenue held even odds of me just popping the pocket dimension like a bubble and losing all the infinity stones within it to the void of existence.
That is no bueno!
The easier method is to bait the time cops into arresting me, and then using their tech to get the coordinates for the pocket dimension.
For that, I needed to get the time cops to come and try to arrest me.
And how do I do that?
By messing with their 'Scared Timeline'.
In their sacred timeline, the Avengers are supposed to be the heroes that save New York.
Doctor Strange is supposed to be the Sorcerer Supreme.
Wanda Maximoff is supposed to fall in love with Vision and fight against Thanos.
Destroy the Mind Stone.
The Avengers are supposed to fail and go get the stones from the past to fix their mistakes.
And Captain America is supposed to end up with a parallel universe version of Peggy Carter.
So many events have to line up just right.
So it only makes sense that to summon the time cops to arrest me, I will have to mess up their beloved little schedule for this timeline. And the first part to that, is for me to supplant the Avengers and become the hero the people look up to.
And while I'm at it, I might as well take the Avengers down a peg to reduce their relevance on the world stage.
That way the timeline shifts even more!
If that doesn't piss the TVA off, I can always go for Plan B and start revealing spoilers, secrets from the future, and the locations of certain events or artifacts to the very wrong sort of people.
Anything and everything until the TVA is pissed off enough that they stop thinking rationally and do something stupid, like try to arrest the multiverse traveler that single-handedly broke into their isolated, fortified North Korea of a world line.
Because I'm pretty sure, that beyond a certain point, they will either have to get involved or give up and run away in fear of me.
While I would prefer they get real involved and come to arrest me, even if they don't, I have a Plan C ready.
Plan C is nothing too creative.
It's just plain old brute force.
If I can't get the infinity stones from the TVA, then I'll just go an item quest and collect them myself.
Sure, it will be bloody and violent, but at this point, I'm used to it. If I have to genocide my way through the universe to get the stones I will.
But I'd prefer to not make that the first option I choose.
So here we are.
New York City.
2012.
Trying to roast the Avengers on the world stage, beating Loki to within an inch of his life and saving the city, to become the anti-government force of chaos that wet dreams are made of.
"Now then, let's get this started!" I said, with the van entering the city centre, and connected the camera on my dash to the world's media, starting another worldwide livestream.
Time to make a dashing entry.
"Ahehem!" I cleared my throat looking into the camera.
"Welcome everyone, people of the world, to the alien invasion of New York City!
I'm here live from the heat of the battle" I said, the camera shifting to reveal the view on the ground, corpses littering the streets, building collapsed by the wayside.
Death and destruction.
"...and well, let's just say, I have a surprise for the residents of the city!
The incompetent US military and their pet heroes might have failed you, but I will not!
Watch and learn!"
The camera turned to focus back on the van as I opened the door in the back and gestured the kids to it, my drones floating off their shelves, their sensors glowing ominously red.
"Go my babies! Disintegrate them all.
Let their alien god sort them out!" I cackled madly, as Star followed suit, trying to copy me.
So cute!
The drones flew out one by one and began to systematically clear the battlefield, disintegrating everything alien in sight, just to make sure the Avengers or the government don't get their hands on these.
Sure, I had tech so far above them it wasn't even a joke, but no way am I underestimating Stark and his bullshit comic logic genius.
On the plus side, this meant no Vulture in the future or overpowered thugs or spacefaring US government helicarriers in the hands of Hydra.
"Hehehehe... you're so weird lately, Papa!" Riley giggled.
"Well, Papa likes to have some fun roleplaying. You should try it. It's loads of fun! Especially the mad scientist parts!" I said, pinching her cheeks.
"Now what are you two waiting for? I thought I said go show them what for!"
"Wait! Us too?" Riley squeaked, looking at the drop to the streets below.
"Are you not my babies too?" I smirked mischievously, "Besides, you have the forcefield generators on you. Nothing will so much as scratch you!"
Riley gulped and looked back down at the street.
Slowly, she inched forward, and took a deep breath preparing to jump, when I stopped her and Star caught her just as she jumped.
Of course I wasn't going to make Riley jump down 15 floors onto a crowded street.
Riley wouldn't get hurt, but the forcefield would collapse the grid with that fall!
"Alright. That's enough joking. Riley, come back in. Star, strafe the field."
Star grinned, smirking at an indignant Riley as he held the handlebar at the edge of the van and leaned out, using force lightning to cleave through the hordes of enemies flying by.
"Mou!" Riley pouted, "That's a mean joke, Papa!"
"Hehehehe...I didn't think you'd actually do it.
Sorry. Maybe it was a bit too mean.
But think! Would I ever let my little kids get hurt like that?"
"I guess not." She said, still angry, watching Star blanket the sky with lightning, downing another wave of enemies, the city awash with the crackling of thunder and the smell of ionized air.
The charred breaking corpses of the Chitauri fell out the sky, fried and roasted like flies in a bug zapper, by the dozens, in droves, layering the city with a rain of ashen snow.
The people below cheered as we passed.
I could feel their gazes looking up, amazed and terrified at the same time.
Just the introduction I wanted.
Love me, admire me, or fear me. It matters not.
What they need to understand is that they should not mess with me. Or there will be consequences.
But there's more of course.
I smiled and drove to Stark tower as the bubble of blue energy came into view, formed over the roof like a canopy.
It was hard to pierce through it in the movie and they needed to use another infinity stone's power to do it.
Let's see how my forcefield fares against it!
It was something I'd always wanted to test out.
I clutched at the forcefield with my power and shaped it into a drill, spinning a mile a minute as I rammed straight into the bubble.
The power crackled at contact, send waves of blue energy blasting across the city in concentric rings, decimating whatever they came into contact with.
Concrete turned to dust and buildings seemed to implode into themselves at contact, forming a small bubble of implosion themselves, before disappearing with a poof.
Probably teleported somewhere.
Somewhere out there in the galaxy, some poor, unfortunate soul is going to get a building toppling down on him out of nowhere!
I snorted, containing my laughter.
Some rings even rippled to the peak of the bubble, the sky beam carrying them high above as they blew outwards in the atmosphere, parting clouds and turning the day into a bright sunny one, without a cloud in the sky.
Neat!
With great effort, slowly my forcefield parted the blue bubble of energy, at the cost of its own potency, flickering and dying out as the van slipped right in through the bubble, like a bar of soap in a prison shower, crashing into the roof of the Stark tower.
Guess the infinity stones aren't the infinity stones for nothing.
That forcefield could have withstood the sun's core and come out unscathed!
Now I'm even more interested in getting these all together!
Though, that was for later.
First, let's check in with the Avengers.
The mighty heroes, defenders of planet Earth.
In the Marvel universes, they were almost a staple, with Captain America leading them nine times out of ten.
The usual roster also tended to include the Hulk and Thor in some capacity alongside Captain Marvel in some cases. Though that wouldn't be the case here for some time.
I could see them converging at a point now, in the middle of a street downtown, one by one arriving at the scene as they stood back to back in a circle.
It looked fucking cool!
If it wasn't obvious, I am a big fan of the Avengers.
Especially Captain America and his values of 'Freedom is for everyone'.
It was the reason I fought to free the slaves in Star Wars.
It was also the reason I was uncomfortable with being worshipped as a God.
Unfortunately, my plan requires me to bring them down a peg. To mess with the sacred timeline enough that the time cops of the TVA come out to deal with me, giving me a path into their citadel.
From there it would be as simple as stealing the infinity stones and portaling out.
That was the ideal plan. The easy way out.
I sighed internally.
I turned to look at the camera and positioned a drone above them, hidden behind a building, just peeking out.
"Oh! Look at them heroes! Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, those two other people.
They are coming together now.
It looks like a hero team up sequence!
I bet they're going to say something cringe like Avengers assemble or something." I said, just as Captain America stood at the forefront of the group.
"Avengers assemble!" He said as if on cue and cringed, realizing what he had done.
I burst out laughing.
"What.....just...I mean they are already coming to you, like they're standing around you. They've already assembled. Why would you say Avengers assemble then? It's a bit redundant isn't it? But I guess that makes sense. Redundant is his whole shtick. Captain America, the man out of time. He's a relic of the past. Redundant himself. And misery likes company....."
I could hear Tony ask "Does he realize we can hear him?"
"Hm? Oh yeah Stark. I meant for you to hear me. Say hi to the camera!" I said, bringing the drone closer to him.
"Your failure is live, across the world."
He frowned, furrowing his brows and shot the drone down.
He tried at least. But I make good stuff.
The drone buckled, swerving to the side before the redundancy systems kicked in and it floated up and away again, it's screen projecting a tongue sticking out at him.
"Jarvis, take a peak into that drone and find me the location of this asshole." Stark asked.
I felt an attempt at an intrusion into my systems, one my A.I. thwarted with ruthless efficiency, almost immediately.
"Actually, good idea, Tony. Computer, Destroy Jarvis." I replied.
The lights in Stark tower flickered for a moment before they shut off.
Tony's suit itself beeped as it's automated systems powered off, and Tony's backup programs took over.
"What did you do?"
"My A.I. beat up your A.I. because you know, my computer is an actual A.I. not that sham of a thing you call Jarvis."
"And you call it computer. You don't have a sense for naming do you? Maybe I can help with that. How about Richard because it can suck my-" He shot back.
I cut off the transmission and turned to Star.
"Star, why don't you go hunt down some more of those aliens? Have fun, save some people."
"Can I?!" He asked excited.
"Of course." I said, giving him a thumbs up and he nodded, pumping his fists as a wave of force soaked into his shadows, tendrils rising up from within it.
He jumped off the roof, swinging onto another building, his force tendrils acting like spider webs, and landed on a passing leviathan, digging his lightsaber into it as he ripped it apart with the force, piece by piece, flinging them away like they were cardboard planks instead of the almost ton heavy monstrosity of armor they were.
Once enough of the armor was off and flesh exposed, he raise a knife hand above his head, a ball of force lightning crackling at the tip of his middle finger.
It glowed with an iridiscent purple sheen as it formed a glove around his knife hand, the intensity of the lightning increasing till it began to burst with a white hot light, condensing at the tip.
In full view of the camera, he slammed his knife hand into the beast, cleaving straight through it's flesh, boiling it's insides up till the Leviathan's skin began to wriggle and pop.
It's eyes blew out, sending steamed innards flying out like puke as the Leviathan crashed down into the Central Park, tearing through the turf, leaving a scar on the earth itself as a trail of black gooey blood and guts formed in its wake.
Star jumped off the beast, cheering, hands in the air, a big smile on his face and began to look around for more.
"Well, that was fun. And little Star has been practicing with his powers!
Papa's proud!" I said wiping an imaginary tear from my eye.
I turned to screen with the Avengers.
"But I really must go. I have your jobs to do after all.
Have fun scavenging ... well, whatever scraps you can scrounge up. See you Scavengers!"
"I'm going to go turn that drone to scrap." Tony quipped, "You guys deal with the rest. And try finding this Star. Find out what he's about." Tony said annoyed, shooting off after it.
"Hehehehe..... Someone's mad. Well, I'm sure the drone can evade one guy in discount bin power armor. And Star is beyond what you could handle altogether. So piece of advice - don't.
For now, let's go deal with the bigger problem!"
I said as the screen switched back to us.
I leveled a hand at the roof below me and cut open a hole in it with my wristwatch, kicking the burnt bit down as I descended into the tower.
"Riley, follow me. Someone might need medical attention soon." I smiled deviously.
.
Gamora looked at the map one last time as she surveyed the pools around the mountain.
This was it.
The location of the Soul Stone.
With a tap, she closed the holographic map, and tucked it into her pocket, as she began to make her ascent to the top.
A figure floated down to meet her, tattered robes swinging freely, supernaturally in the still wind.
"Gamora, daughter of Thanos." He greeted.
"You know who I am?" She asked surprised, her hand resting on her blade in alert.
"It is my curse to know all who journey here."
She thought for a moment whether she should just kill him and move on. Maybe he is the bearer of the Stone and her journey would end here.
She was tired. And the stone, it would give her what she needed after a long time.
Thanos would let her rest.
"We all think that at first." He said, as if he had read mind.
"We are all wrong. Follow me."
Gamora narrowed her eyes and followed the figure, as he lead her up a winding path.
"How is it you know this place so well?" She asked, watching the surroundings carefully.
Pillars, carvings, crude and ancient.
An altar, cracked and broken on a cliff.
"I too sought the stones once. A lifetime ago. They banished me here. Set me on this ...path.
Guiding others to a treasure I cann-"
Suddenly, something blue glowed above, clouds of energy crackled overhead, forming a cirlcle.
A look of recognition flickered across the hooded figure's face as he took a step closer.
The cloud rippled and a thunderous sound echoed throughout the valley below, and it looked as if the property of space itself had been torn asunder, a hole bright and white.
Then, something fell out from the hole, and she leapt away on instinct, her body screaming at her to run away.
A large object, a structure of some type.
A meteor?
No.
It was too orderly.
Built by a civilization. She immediately realized.
"Where did that come from?!" She asked alarmed.
The figure in the hood looked at the wreckage, forlorn.
"A place I once called home." He said, regret in his voice and a deep, unheard sadness.
She felt pity for the man, for once, but stayed her thoughts.
"Does this happen often?" She looked over the wreckage concerned.
"No. Only when someone tries to recklessly use the Space Stone like I once did.
A fool's errand." The figure replied, turning away.
"Come. You desire the Soul Stone. It isn't far now."
Gamora nodded as she realized something.
Wasn't her father trying to capture the Space Stone about now?
Perhaps....this could mean the end of him.
Perhaps, she would be free, finally?
"Come." The figure beckoned once more and she shook her head.
Those thoughts were traitorous.
No one could stand up against the might of Thanos. She had seen it. Tried it. All had failed.
All would fail. He was inevitable.
_____________________
Here we go!
MC is on the job, Star pops a Leviathan like a party balloon, and Loki has a bad, bad end coming for him.
The extra chapter for 200 powerstones as promised.
The next extra chapter at 300 powerstones.
Till then, see ya!
Also, if you want to support me, buy me a cup of coffee or read ahead go to,
www.pat.reon.com/goldenfingers
Will start posting extra chapters early there by tomorrow if all goes well.
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