But of course, this was merely a drop in the bucket. New York was now a bottomless pit; even if everyone scraped together every last penny they had, it wouldn't fill even one percent of the gaping hole. Rebuilding would be a colossal undertaking, far from something that could be accomplished overnight.
The President wanted to cry but had no tears left. As everyone knew, the U.S. President was essentially a contract worker. Whether he'd even get to sit in this chair for another term after his current one was up was another story entirely.
But this President's luck was evidently terrible. His predecessors had all sat in the office just fine, yet from the moment he took office, it had been one disaster after another. First the Monster Association, then a wave of supervillains, and now, to top it all off, a bunch of aliens had come along and blown New York to smithereens.
At this rate, it looked like New York wouldn't stand a chance of returning to normal by the time his term ended and he was kicked out of office. He was also guaranteed to be saddled with the stinking label of "Worst President in History."
The concerned public couldn't care less whether the alien invasion was his fault or not. As far as they were concerned, his term had been plagued by constant catastrophes, financial deficits, and a track record too embarrassing to show anyone. The pundits would probably roast him so hard he wouldn't even recognize his own mother.
But right at that moment, the White House's savior appeared.
Perhaps this was just a staple of the American comic book world. Every time an earth-shattering battle like this wrapped up, there would always be at least one incredibly wealthy, highly influential, and conveniently philanthropic good Samaritan to step up and clean up the mess.
In the neighboring universe, that would be a certain playboy with a bizarre hobby of scaling rooftops in the dead of night. Here, it was naturally the completely reformed Tony Stark.
Stark arrived at the White House with massive funds and a comprehensive plan, volunteering to shoulder the heavy burden of rebuilding New York. He leveraged his renowned reputation to smooth things over and used his influence to pull in more entrepreneurs for investment.
Unexpectedly, the very first to answer the call was none other than Wilson Fisk, a man who had built his empire on crime.
The Kingpin of Crime cared about New York's reconstruction more than anyone else. Aside from Stark, he contributed the most money and effort.
After all, Kingpin was the underworld emperor of New York. Now that the entire city was gone, wouldn't that make him the emperor of a refugee camp?
Stark Industries was already a titan of industry, and with Stark's own reputation as Iron Man at its absolute peak, it wasn't long before many others answered the call and jumped on board.
Capitalists, of course, couldn't be swayed by the government's pretty words and fancy empty promises. Most of them were betting on the limitless potential of Stark's golden name.
The White House was overjoyed. The President felt that Stark was practically the savior of his political career—even Stark's arrogant face seemed much easier on the eyes now!
If one had to sum up the entirety of New York right now in a single word, it would be: chaos.
No matter where you went in the city, it was a tangled mess. Search and rescue operations for survivors were still underway everywhere, and the casualty count continued to climb.
Official statistics hadn't been released yet, but anyone could guess that the numbers would be absolutely horrifying.
The U.S. military had also suffered heavy casualties in this battle. Beneath almost every collapsed building that was excavated, bodies were found buried in the rubble.
On top of that, law and order had become a massive issue.
New York was practically a wasteland now, and the law enforcement system had completely collapsed into chaos. Hordes of lawless thugs took to the streets, looking to cash in and make a quick buck off the disaster.
The superheroes had all gone their separate ways after the battle, leaving the burden of maintaining order to street-level heroes like Daredevil and Luke Cage. Gwen also frequently extended her daily patrol routes to help keep the peace. But for an area this sprawling, their efforts were a mere drop in the bucket—helpful, but ultimately limited in scope.
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No one could have predicted that the one to step up and maintain order during this lawless period would be none other than the crime boss himself, Kingpin.
It seemed that Fisk's earlier declaration about wanting to build a better New York wasn't just lip service. With the city drowning in chaos, neither the government, the police, nor even the superheroes were as effective as Kingpin's syndicate.
With a wave of his hand, Fisk decreed that effective immediately, all looting, rioting, and arson by criminals across the city was strictly forbidden. Every single criminal enterprise and illicit activity in the city, big or small, was to halt operations entirely!
Everyone was to dedicate themselves fully to New York's disaster relief efforts. Anyone who dared defy this order was disrespecting Kingpin's authority, and they would meet only one fate: death!
And so, over the next few days, you could see New York's entire underworld suddenly transform into a vanguard of law and order.
You might catch sight of a desperate, ordinary citizen driven to drastic measures, packing heat and trying to rob emergency supplies, only for a pack of "righteous" mobsters to leap out of nowhere and pin him to the ground.
Other times, you'd even see gangs of street thugs—covered in tattoos, sporting dyed hair, and chomping on cigars—enthusiastically throwing themselves into disaster relief work.
However, figuring out how to resettle the citizens of New York was another headache entirely.
After all, New York City had been fundamentally destroyed on a structural level.
The very bedrock beneath it had been hollowed out. The sewers and subterranean infrastructure had all been demolished and expanded by the Monster Association.
For thousands of meters below ground, there was nothing but empty space. Where was anyone supposed to find enough material to fill a void that massive?
Rebuilding was a monumental challenge in itself, let alone dealing with the displaced citizens.
Many of them had been bankrupted by the disaster. They had paid years of property taxes on their homes, only to have them vanish in the blink of an eye.
The losses were so immense that many couldn't even accept it; some were driven to suicide. Insurance companies flat-out refused to honor claims for this kind of disaster, citing the fact that they didn't offer "Alien Invasion" or "Monster Attack" coverage, thus placing the incident entirely outside their liability.
Just as Stark was at his wits' end and the U.S. government was preparing to establish the Department of Damage Control—an agency specifically designed to clean up the Avengers' messes in the original storyline—
Zod Heath stepped forward.
He announced his intention to turn New York into the headquarters of the Excalibur Agency. In other words, the rebuilt New York would belong to the Excalibur Agency.
As for the displaced citizens, the Excalibur Agency would provide them with compensation.
By doing this, he was essentially dragging the P5—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—and the rest of the world into the fold. The U.S. President was moved to tears of gratitude.
Faced with Zod Heath's proposal for an Excalibur Agency headquarters in New York, along with his justification for why an entire city was needed to serve as a base, the rest of the P5 eventually agreed.
With the entire world chipping in, New York's losses were suddenly nothing to worry about.
Zod Heath even invented a type of bedrock molecule that could be pumped directly into the ground. Once injected, the molecules would fuse with the existing bedrock, forcing it to regenerate and expand.
The massive subterranean voids beneath New York City were filled in a remarkably short time. The new foundation was likely far sturdier than the original earth, meaning earthquakes would never be a concern again.
According to Zod Heath, he planned to construct an invincible battleship for the people of Earth, designed to fend off any potential alien invasions—be it Saiyans, the Chitauri, or whatever other random extraterrestrials might come their way.
As envisioned, this invincible battleship would be capable of operating in the sea, on land, and in the air.
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