After that, during Thor 2, all he had to do was take the Reality Stone, and he'd have collected four Infinity Stones. Unless this universe also contained Nemesis, Zod Hess shouldn't have to worry about any consequences of gathering the stones together.
Loki got a taste of the treatment his brother suffered in the original storyline. Falling from nine thousand meters, then getting locked in a cage—well, the cage wasn't really a problem; Loki could slip out with a casual spell.
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It was the fall that almost killed him. Loki braced his aching back and shot a venomous glare at the sky.
Since the Helicarrier hadn't been damaged, and with Director Zod Hess himself on the scene, Blonsky was put down in a couple of moves. Everyone else took it in stride. Only Thor was stunned by the sheer power of this Midgardian.
"Who is he?"
Thor couldn't help asking Tony.
"Oh, he's our boss. You could say he's the strongest man on the planet."
Tony was proud by nature, but after being humbled by Zod Hess time and time again, he'd long gotten used to it. Thor, however, was a different matter. Hearing even the arrogant Tony say that made Thor itch to test himself against Zod Hess in battle.
"Dr. Banner has already located the Tesseract, but the bad news is that before we captured Loki, he was seen stealing iridium along with Hawkeye and Blonsky."
Zod Hess's appearance put everyone at ease, and Black Widow delivered the intel without hesitation.
"Iridium?"
Both Tony and Bruce Banner's faces fell.
"What exactly is Loki planning to do? Do you know, Thor?"
Natasha asked. Hawkeye and Blonsky were both unconscious, so they couldn't get any answers from them right now.
"He wants to use the Tesseract to open a portal and summon his army to Midgard."
Thor said after a brief pause.
"My satellites have detected an energy signature in New York that matches the Tesseract."
Zod Hess spoke up at that moment.
"New York?"
The others hadn't expected Loki to have already made it there so quickly.
"Fury, I'm authorizing you to assemble every superhero. Natasha, inform the U.S. Air Force to get ready."
Zod Hess looked at all of them.
"War is about to begin."
The reason he hadn't stopped any of this was because the battle to come would be the perfect opportunity for Earth to become overflowing with black technology. Before the New York battle, Earth was still a relatively normal planet, where black tech only existed in a handful of individuals. But after the Battle of New York, Earth would become a place where black tech ran rampant, so plentiful it became as common as dirt.
New York, Manhattan.
Stark Tower!
Loki, with his few remaining subordinates and Dr. Erik Selvig—who was under his control and had been researching the Tesseract—opened a portal to the depths of space. The Chitauri army, long grown impatient, poured out in droves from the massive hole torn open in the sky.
The Chitauri were a type of soldier, like mechanical octopi created by a machine emperor—something straight out of The Matrix. Controlled by a host ship in the rear, the troops up front were all mass-produced cannon fodder.
Under normal circumstances, this would have caused mass casualties. In the original storyline, the Chitauri had already begun their destruction before the superheroes came rushing in too late, and even then, they'd achieved very little. But now, Zod Hess had already issued a Dragon-level disaster alert ahead of time through the Sentinel robots, so all the citizens of New York had evacuated to shelters. By the time the Chitauri invaded, New York was practically a ghost town.
The U.S. Air Force, having received their notice, didn't dare drag its feet. If anyone else had given the order, they might've had to go through a whole chain of command, but since it was Zod Hess, all they had to do was obey. War Machine, Iron Monger, and the Decepticons were all deployed.
The United States was the country with the highest demand for War Machines. And with the Umbrella Corporation growing bigger and bigger, production lines multiplying, and manufacturing speed and efficiency climbing, they'd accumulated a considerable force of War Machines.
But tens of thousands of War Machines against the Chitauri—the same Chitauri that Black Widow in the original movie could mow down with a tiny pistol—were not looking good. Zod Hess furrowed his brow. The Chitauri were performing far better than in the original storyline. At the very least, a War Machine had to fire its autocannon dozens of times just to take down a single Chitauri soldier, while one shot from a Chitauri could nearly scrap a War Machine entirely.
"After all, they're an army that's campaigned across the universe. The original plot only resolved so easily because the special effects budget ran out."
Zod Hess took that painful lesson to heart. He'd assumed the War Machines would steamroll the enemy, but now it was looking like a three-for-one trade.
Iron Monger and the Decepticons, however, performed well. As a heavy-firepower and heavy-armor unit, Iron Monger could take the Chitauri's formidable weaponry—they just couldn't punch through its thick plating quickly—while Iron Monger's own weapons were all designed for taking out armored targets and fortifications. It dealt devastating damage to them.
The Decepticons went without saying. Freshly upgraded by Zod Hess and outfitted with all kinds of weapons, if you left out the small-caliber, low-yield stuff, the rest let them cut through the Chitauri like gods of war. On average, a single Decepticon wiped out hundreds, even thousands of Chitauri. And with subspace storage, they could keep fighting for a very, very long time.
At that exact moment, the Helicarrier arrived.
"Open fire!"
At Zod Hess's command, the Helicarrier unleashed its entire arsenal. The close-in weapon systems with their eight-thousand-meter range opened up first, radar automatically locking onto every airborne target, shredding and blasting apart countless Chitauri. And the Chitauri's attacks on the Helicarrier were completely ignored.
Nick Fury felt a rush from his toes to the top of his head. This was the scene he'd been longing for, the picture he'd always wanted to see. Yes, exactly like this. Why should Earthlings always be behind the aliens? Why should Earthlings always be crushed by them? The feeling of Earthlings crushing aliens was pretty damn good.
Just then, from within the gaping wormhole, an enormous mechanical whale emerged.
Leviathan!
The Chitauri's armored transport unit. In the movie, it never showed any offensive capabilities. But here, its mouth began to glow—and the target was the Helicarrier.
In that instant, Zod Hess vanished on the spot. When he reappeared, he was outside.
The Leviathan fired an energy beam. Zod Hess spread his hands, forming an energy barrier before him. The beam slammed into the barrier, sustaining its fire for several seconds, but in the end, it couldn't break through. The energy exhausted itself and dissipated feebly into nothing.
/-\
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