Above them, on the rooftop, the Tesseract activated. A beam of blue energy pierced the sky—literally. It opened a hole fifty thousand feet above New York. On the other side of that hole was space . . . and the waiting Chitauri. They began to pour through, riding small machines like flying motorcycles. There were dozens of them at first, then hundreds, racing down toward the city that lay defenseless below.

Or at least, Tony thought, the Chitauri thought it was defenseless. He flew up to meet them. Somewhere—he hoped not too far away—the rest of the team was coming. It sure was going to be a long day if he had to take on the entire Chitauri invading force by himself, in a suit that had never even been tested in the field.

As fast as he could, Tony blasted the Chitauri out of the air as fast as he could with repulsors and shoulder-mounted minimissiles. There were too many of them! They got past him and flew low over the streets of New York, shooting wildly and destroying anything in their path.

The Battle of New York had begun.

Newly transformed into his Asgardian armor and helmet, Loki watched. At last, his conquest was beginning.

Then, for the second time in a few minutes, he was unpleasantly surprised by the appearance of someone he had thought dead.

Thor dropped out of the sky to land on Tony’s balcony. “Loki!” he roared. “Turn off the Tesseract, or I’ll destroy it!”

“You can’t !” Loki cried out, riding a wave of exhilaration at seeing his army finally in action. “There is no stopping it. There is only . . . the war!”

“So be it,” Thor growled.

Loki jumped down from the rooftop and slashed at Thor with the scepter. Thor blocked it and struck back with Mjolnir. They battled with the fury that only brothers at war can feel, their combat tearing pieces away from the top of Stark Tower to fall onto the roofs of shorter buildings nearby.

Around them, the Chitauri army marauded through the streets. New York was rapidly falling into chaos.

The Quinjet was coming in hot with Barton at the controls and Natasha monitoring the situation . . . which looked not so good. She saw Iron Man zigzagging through the city and broke radio silence to let him know they were close. “Stark, we’re on your three, headed northeast,” Natasha said.

“What, did you stop for drive-through? Swing up Park Avenue, I’m going to lay them out for you.” A large group of Chitauri were right on Tony’s tail. He angled north and then banked back around. The Chitauri followed, and the Quinjet caught them from the side, shooting many of them down with its belly-mounted cannon.

“Sir, we have more incoming,” Jarvis said.

“Fine. Let’s keep ’em occupied,” Tony said.

The Quinjet swung by Stark Tower, still firing as the Chitauri air bikes came within range. Hawkeye saw Thor and Loki fighting. He gestured to the Black Widow. “Nat?”

“I see them.”

Hawkeye brought the Quinjet around and slowed it to a near hover so she could target Loki—but before the Quinjet’s gun locked in, Loki got off a bolt of energy from his scepter. It exploded in the Quinjet’s left wing engine, sending the jet into a violent downward spiral. Only Hawkeye’s superb piloting skills kept them from crashing straight down and taking most of a building with them. As it was, they landed hard in a street-side plaza a few blocks from Stark Tower. Quickly, they unbuckled and got out of the Quinjet, with Captain America in the lead. “We need to get back up there,” he said.

They ran toward Stark Tower as the Chitauri flashed overhead, strafing the streets. Tony was shooting them down as fast as he could, but there were still plenty left. And then a groaning noise came from the hole in the sky, and they looked up to see a giant creature coming through from Chitauri space.

It was hundreds of feet long, with a gaping mouth and a tail that undulated up and down as it seemed to swim through the air. It had no wings. It had fins, and bony spikes sticking up from its back. It was like a giant skeletal fish that could fly, and it bore down on New York. As it dove between the skyscrapers of Mid-town, portals in its sides opened, and Chitauri foot soldiers leaped out, hanging onto the sides of building and breaking in through the windows.

“Stark, are you seeing this?” Cap radioed.

“Seeing. Still working on believing,” Tony answered. He was hot on the Leviathan’s tail, but he had no idea how to fight something that big. A flick of its armored body destroyed whole floors of buildings. “Where’s Banner? Has he shown up yet?”

“Banner?” Cap echoed.

“Just keep me posted,” Tony said. They were going to need Bruce before this was all over. He flew in parallel with the Leviathan, wondering what to do next. “Jarvis, find me a soft spot,” he said. Jarvis got to work.

But while he did that, Tony was going to have to distract the monster before it wrecked the city all by itself.

He made a pass in front of the Leviathan and speckled its head with minimissiles. They didn’t hurt it, but it turned to come after him with a roar that shook bricks loose from nearby storefronts. “Well, we got its attention. What was step two?” he wondered aloud as he accelerated away. neJDuqEhSfeUGmAf8iYtYmCda1/LHqk3fXqPHMAMNzYHxWbAGuj+DnR7hZrwQllG