EXT. NEW YORK CITY – SKYLINE – NIGHT
Chaos ruled the sky.
Portals bloomed like infected stars, spilling Chitauri warships and shrieking gliders onto Manhattan. Smoke coiled through the skyline. Sirens wailed in every direction. And through it all, six people carved their way forward—barely keeping pace with the apocalypse above them.
"Everyone still breathing?" Steve's voice came over the comms, steady despite the roar of battle.
"Define breathing," Tony replied, repulsors screaming as he zipped between falling debris and laser blasts. "Because I'm flying through a Michael Bay set right now."
"Less whining, more frying," Jessica snapped, her voice sharp over the earpiece. "Top-left tower, ten incoming!"
Tony peeled into a roll and unleashed a burst of energy that clipped the wings off the lead glider. The rest scattered—right into a bolt of thunder.
Thor crashed down next, Mjolnir spinning like a cyclone. He landed on a rooftop with a BOOM, flattening a squad of Chitauri and sending three more flying with a sweep of his hammer.
"They fall like insects," he announced.
"Tell 'em that when they start crawling up your cape," came Natasha's dry reply, gunshots popping over the channel.
Down below, she was a blur in black, weaving through alleyways and rubble. Her pistols sang with precision. Two shots—one in the eye, one in the neck. Drop. Move. Reload. Vault over a car. Repeat.
A Chitauri lunged from her blind side.
Jessica slammed into it mid-air, boots first, sending it skidding into a mailbox. "Watch your six, Widow."
Natasha didn't miss a beat. "Thought I had a new Spider-Sense partner. Guess I was wrong."
"Hey, I'm still house training," Jessica said with a smirk as she leapt back into the air, venom blast crackling from her palm and dropping two Chitauri gliders in one sweep.
"Focus," Steve ordered. "We need to push toward the tower."
He was the center of the storm—shield raised, leading from the front. Every step forward came with resistance. A plasma shot ricocheted off his shield; he rolled under it, slammed into a trooper's legs, and finished it with a swing that cracked armor.
"Hawkeye, status?"
"Nesting," Clint replied coolly from a balcony six floors up. His bow loosed arrow after arrow—grapples, explosions, EMP darts—all launched with brutal rhythm.
One arrow found a glider's engine and turned it into a spinning fireball. Another stuck into a trooper's back and sent him convulsing.
"I'm thinning the herd. But we've got a stampede coming, Cap."
Across the city, more portals tore open. Larger ones. Carrier-sized warships began to descend, letting out hundreds more troopers.
Jessica flipped into a glide beside Steve, panting. "We're being swarmed. We need a path to Stark Tower or we're just spinning in circles."
"You're right," Cap replied. "Thor, Iron Man—you're our air support. Clear the skies. Hulk—"
A deep roar shook the ground before he could finish.
Hulk tore through the side of a parking garage like a wrecking ball. Chitauri skittered away as he pounded the pavement, grabbing a glider mid-flight and hurling it into a building.
"HULK SMASH BUGS!"
"Perfect," Cap said. "Hulk keeps ground clear. Jessica and Widow—rescue detail. Keep civilians safe and mobile. Hawkeye, give me a path to the tower."
"Already mapping it," Clint replied, voice focused. "Three blocks east, then cut through the subway tunnel. Fewer flyers down there."
"Let's move."
They moved like gears in a barely-oiled machine—functional but not yet fluid. Jessica zipped between buildings, scooping a trapped family from a flipped taxi and gliding them to safety. Natasha shot out the engine of a skimmer chasing her.
On the rooftops, Thor and Iron Man flew in chaotic orbits—one trailing lightning, the other smoke. Thor brought a storm down with a scream of fury, while Tony flanked it with surgical strikes.
But it wasn't enough.
Every portal they closed, three more opened.
Jessica landed hard next to Steve, breath ragged. "We're not going to make it to the tower at this rate. They're just stalling us."
Steve wiped blood from his brow and glanced upward. The Tesseract's light was still pulsing from the tower—faint, but constant.
He tapped his comm. "Tony, Thor. Can either of you punch through to the tower directly?"
"No-go," Tony responded. "Tried twice. Got swarmed both times. I can't take another hit without losing the left stabilizer."
"And the sky burns," Thor added grimly. "It is difficult to sense direction in this chaos."
A Chitauri skimmer dove low. Jessica jumped up, fired a venom blast into the pilot, and landed atop it mid-air.
"Guess I'll make a path the old-fashioned way."
"Spider-Woman, wait—"
Too late.
Jessica rode the glider like a surfboard, steering with foot pressure, slamming into other riders as she went. One. Two. Four. She knocked them out of the sky like a streaking comet. Her laughter was half adrenaline, half desperation.
Behind her, Hulk leapt three stories up to catch a crashing glider before it hit civilians. He roared, smashing it into a lamppost.
"Damn these aliens." Natasha muttered as she ducked into another alley to escort a wounded paramedic.
Steve turned, signaling to nearby cops. "Fall back to the barricade! Anyone who can still walk, move!"
"We're getting bottlenecked," Clint called out. "Portals are encircling the tower. They're funneling us into a kill zone."
Tony's voice cut in again. "I've got something. There's a weak point in the arc reactor array on the tower's base. Maybe if we overload—"
"Save the science for later," Steve barked. "Clear the perimeter first. If we break formation, we're done."
Jessica zipped back in, landing near Steve again. Her suit was scorched, and one glove sparked.
"Got five civvies out. Lost the glider. We doing okay?"
Steve glanced around.
Flames. Ruins. The skyline bleeding fire.
Not okay.
But standing still would get them killed.
"We hold this line," Steve said. "We hold until the moment opens. We hold... and then we charge."
Behind him, Thor landed beside a smoking crater.
Iron Man hovered overhead, one repulsor charged.
Hulk pounded his fists.
Clint notched another arrow.
Natasha checked her last magazine.
Jessica cracked her knuckles, sparks dancing across her fingertips.
They were tired. Bruised. Outnumbered.
But they stood anyway.
First time together. First test as a team.
And right now?
They were all that stood between Earth and oblivion.
Captain America ducked beneath a Chitauri energy blast that scorched a car door inches from his head. They were gaining ground, but just barely. Their numbers weren't thinning—they were multiplying. More skimmers. More foot soldiers. And another Leviathan was emerging through the central portal.
Then, Fury's voice cut through the static in his earpiece, sharp and urgent.
[FURY]: "Cap—reinforcements inbound. Non-standard. You'll know them when you see 'em."
Steve didn't have time to ask before the street shook beneath his feet.
A deep rumble.
Not from the skies.
From the street.
Then a flash of blazing yellow light tore around a corner—a creamish-yellow RV, scorched with laser marks, spewing fire from its rear thrusters like a demon on wheels.
It smashed through a parked taxi, crushed two Chitauri scouts, and kept going. Its front grill popped open, revealing a cannon. A plasma cannon.
The Wúburst cannon fired once.
BOOM.
A flying Chitauri skimmer exploded into flaming debris, raining down on its comrades like shrapnel confetti.
And then came the rooftop gunfire.
RAT-A-TAT-TAT.
Max Tennyson sat cross-legged on the roof of the RV, helmet flipped up, casually gunning down Chitauri mid-air with what looked like a modified Earth machine gun rigged with alien parts. It spat bursts of concentrated green energy, popping flying invaders like overripe melons.
"Hope I'm not late," Max muttered, sliding a fresh power cell into the weapon without missing a beat.
From the RV's side hatch, Gwen Tennyson shot out first—glowing purple in her Lucky Girl outfit, surrounded by hovering charm totems. With a flick of her wrist, she summoned a levitating ring of glowing sigils that blasted a dozen Chitauri foot soldiers off their skimmers.
"Get away from them!" she shouted, spinning mid-air, flinging twin blasts into a skimmer's propulsion. It spiraled, exploded behind her as she pirouetted through it in flight.
Kevin Levin came next—sprinting into battle like a linebacker on fire. He grabbed a metal street sign, absorbed it, then shoved his hand into the rubble of a half-melted hydrant.
Metal. Stone. Concrete.
He roared as his body transformed into a juggernaut of dense urban matter, spikes and plates and jagged fury. A Chitauri tried to leap at him—
—and Kevin punched it through a city bus.
"Nice try, toaster face!" he barked, shouldering another skimmer as if it were made of paper. "God, I missed this."
Finally, Ben Tennyson stepped out with a grin. "Been a while, New York."
He slammed down on the Omnitrix.
"Chromastone!"
In a pulse of violet light, he transformed—his body now a sleek, glowing crystal humanoid.
Chitauri noticed.
They fired.
Beams hit him directly, lighting him up with power.
Ben stood there, glowing brighter with every hit, grinning as the Omnitrix pulsed on his chest.
"Wrong move, aliens."
He raised a crystalline arm—and unleashed the absorbed energy in a sweeping arc of violet destruction. The blast sliced through three skimmers, overloaded a Leviathan's front shield, and lit up the night like a second sun.
"Chromastone's back, baby!"
On a nearby rooftop, Jessica Drew turned to Cap. "Is that kid supposed to be glowing?"
"Not asking questions right now," Cap muttered, watching Kevin hurl a taxi like a discus.
The RV screeched to a stop beside the Avengers.
Max casually jumped down, not even winded. "Captain Rogers, right? I'm Max Tennyson. This is my team."
Cap gave a wary nod. "They're effective."
"They're just warming up," Max replied, reloading his rooftop blaster.
Thor landed with a crash beside them, Mjolnir dripping with scorched Chitauri gore. "That one," he pointed to Kevin, "has the temperament of a dwarf berserker. I like him."
Kevin shouted as he ripped apart a Leviathan's wing with his bare hands, now composed of gleaming iron and shield-like plates. "I heard that!"
Gwen floated overhead. "Don't encourage him!"
Tony's voice crackled in from above.
[TONY]: "Steve, I'm seeing another Leviathan inbound—scratch that, two. This party's getting way too crowded."
Max didn't miss a beat. "You won't win this by brute force."
He pointed to the sky, to the massive, pulsing mothership barely visible through the swirling vortex over the Stark Tower.
"That's the mothership. The Chitauri are a hive species. Kill the brain, and the body drops."
Tony flew lower. "You sure?"
"Son, I've been fighting these guys longer than you've been alive."
Steve looked up at the sky, then at Tony and Thor. "Can the three of you reach that thing?"
Tony nodded. "With effort."
"I can carry them both," Thor said, lifting Mjolnir.
Ben stepped forward, reverting from Chromastone. "Count me in."
"Kid, that's not—" Steve started.
Ben slapped the Omnitrix again.
"Humungousaur!"
With a primal roar, he grew—bulking out into a towering dinosaur-like beast with rock-tan skin and fists the size of small cars.
"I can jump really high," Humungousaur added, cracking his knuckles.
As if on cue, Hulk barreled past him—shoulder-tackling another Leviathan and roaring with joy.
Humungousaur grinned. "I really wanna try that."
With an ear-splitting yell, he charged, grabbed a Chitauri tank, spun it like a hammer, and threw it into a collapsing building. The shockwave rocked the block.
"Hey, green guy!" he shouted to Hulk. "Let's wreck stuff together!"
Hulk responded with a pleased grunt and leapt after him.
Back near the RV, Cap spoke into his comm. "All right. Thor, Stark, Humungousaur—you three, get ready. We make a path. Everyone else—keep the Chitauri off their backs."
Natasha loaded her pistols. "Time to buy some chaos."
Jessica zipped into the air beside Gwen. "You levitate, I swing. Let's dance."
Gwen raised her hand, forming another glowing spell circle. "Try to keep up, Spider-lady."
The tide was turning.
Not because the enemy had grown weaker.
But because Earth's defenders just got weirder—and stronger.
And the sky was about to find out what happens when you piss off everyone.
The air above New York shimmered again—another flash of light, but this one different. Not Chitauri. Not alien.
Angels.
Captain America's comms crackled. "Something just entered Stark Tower—humanoid signatures, but not from any known species," Maria Hill's voice reported. "We think they're... not from this world."
Nathan, perched invisibly high above the city in the upper atmosphere, saw it. His cue. Finally.
[It's time.]
"Figured," he muttered. A streak of red and white thundered through the clouds like a missile breaking the sound barrier—Homelander form activated, caped and glowing with power as he descended like a divine bolt.
Below, Gwen and Jessica stood on a tilted rooftop beside Cap and Max. Gwen blasted another Chitauri soldier mid-air with a glowing arc of pink energy, while Jess web-zipped to save a child trapped beneath rubble. As the others regrouped near the Avengers' improvised hold line, they all turned toward the sudden sonic boom tearing the sky open.
Nathan hovered down in slow, effortless control, landing with a crunch of pavement.
"Sorry I'm late," he said casually, brushing dust off his shoulder. "Had to deal with... something else."
Gwen blinked. "Of course you did."
Jessica landed beside her, glancing at Gwen, then at Nathan. "You always show up right when things get interesting."
The two women shared a brief look. A beat of realization. No drama—just quiet curiosity. Jessica raised a brow. Gwen gave a slight smirk. Nathan, oblivious or pretending to be, focused on Cap.
Captain America gave him a quick once-over, then looked at Max. "Friend of yours?"
Max didn't hesitate. "Yeah. He's solid."
"Alright then," Cap nodded. "You're in."
Tony, just touching down in a flash of repulsor bursts, lifted his faceplate and looked between the group. "Great. Sure. Everyone's flying these days."
Natasha passed behind him, loading another magazine. "Playboy."
Tony raised a brow. "Hey, I didn't say it."
Nathan grinned. "Right, back to business."
His form shimmered, armor plating folding and transforming in a mechanical dance as Homelander gave way to Cyborg—sleek, battle-hardened, with one glowing red eye and a sonic cannon charging at the shoulder.
He turned to Ben, who was just landing from a leap in Humungousaur form.
"Ben! You're the fastest of us. You go Jetray."
"You got it!" Ben slapped the Omnitrix. "Jetray!" A flash of green light erupted, and the winged alien emerged, already lifting off the ground.
Thor twirled Mjolnir beside him, lightning crackling.
Iron Man's systems pulsed to full as his thrusters flared.
Four figures—god, tech, alien, hybrid—lined up. The air around them buzzed with pressure and purpose.
"Let's end this," Nathan said, locking arms into a charged position.
And then, without a word, the team launched—Thor spinning skyward, Iron Man streaking ahead, Jetray rocketing forward in a burst of green propulsion, and Cyborg trailing behind in a blaze of afterburner flame.
They shot toward the largest portal—toward the dark gaping mouth of the invasion.
The battle wasn't over. But now, the tide was about to turn.