The air above Manhattan was thick with tension. The Helicarrier loomed in the sky, its invisible presence watching over the unfolding chaos below. Within its command center, the Avengers gathered around a holographic projection of the city, analyzing the movements of their enemies—known and unknown.
SHIELD had been tracking Alexander Carter for weeks, but he remained a ghost, appearing and disappearing with precision. He was neither friend nor foe, but Nick Fury knew one thing: Carter was a wildcard, and wildcards could change the tide of battle.
"I don't like it," Steve Rogers muttered, arms crossed over his chest. "This guy operates in the shadows, takes out mercenaries before we even get to them. That's not how we do things."
"Maybe not how you do things," Tony Stark quipped, his holographic interface flickering as he scrolled through Carter's limited profile. "But let's be real, Cap—this guy is effective. He's got something none of us do."
Bruce Banner leaned forward, adjusting his glasses. "And that is?"
"An army," Natasha Romanoff answered. "One made of shadows."
Clint Barton, perched near the edge of the room, exhaled sharply. "I've tracked him. He's good. Real good. And if HYDRA's after him, it means they consider him a problem."
Fury narrowed his eye. "Then the real question is—does that make him our problem or our asset?"
Alexander Carter materialized from the darkness, his violet eyes gleaming as he surveyed the hidden base beneath the Manhattan Bridge. It was a staging ground—Loki's mercenaries moving weapons, stolen SHIELD tech, and something far more dangerous.
A Tesseract Stabilization Device.
Carter's lips curled into a smirk. "Well, well, looks like Loki's got himself a science project."
Noctis emerged from the shadows beside him, his form flickering like mist. "We taking it?"
Carter considered it. Disrupting Loki's plan would weaken the upcoming invasion, but there was a bigger issue at play. HYDRA had been sniffing around, and he wasn't keen on letting them get their hands on this tech either.
"Destroy it," Carter ordered. "We're not letting HYDRA or Loki keep it."
Before Noctis could respond, a low hum vibrated through the air. Carter's instincts flared. Something wasn't right.
Then the gunfire started.
HYDRA's elite strike team emerged from the darkness, armed with energy-based rifles designed to counter superhuman threats. They weren't here for Loki. They were here for Carter.
"Kill the Shadow Lord!" one of the operatives barked.
Carter barely moved as his shadows surged around him, swallowing bullets before they could reach him. Noctis vanished, striking down three men in an instant. Vasili dropped from above, his dagger carving through the throat of another.
Carter extended his hand, the abyss swirling. The battlefield belonged to him.
"You came prepared," he mused, stepping through the chaos untouched. "Not prepared enough."
The shadows screamed, devouring HYDRA's operatives one by one. Carter's army moved like a storm, overwhelming the ambush with supernatural precision. HYDRA had underestimated him, and now they would pay the price.
By the time SHIELD's strike team arrived, it was over.
The Manhattan Bridge base was in ruins. HYDRA's forces were annihilated, their bodies reduced to nothing but black mist. The stolen tech was destroyed, the mercenaries scattered. And Carter? He was gone, vanished like a phantom.
Natasha examined the scene, her sharp eyes catching the faint remnants of abyssal energy. "This wasn't Loki," she murmured. "This was him."
Fury stood over the last remaining HYDRA operative, barely clinging to life. The man's eyes were wild with terror as he muttered one thing over and over again:
"He's not human… he's something else."
Fury exhaled. "Yeah. And that's the problem."
High above in the Helicarrier, Loki smirked in his glass cell. He had felt the chaos in the city, the disturbance in the balance of power.
Alexander Carter.
The trickster god chuckled to himself, tapping a finger against the glass.
"Oh, this is going to be fun."
End of Chapter 63
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