02 || the second battle of new york

"TELL ME, WHAT KIND OF SHIT DID YOU GET US UP AGAINST NOW?"
- Bleecker Street, New York, April 2018-

When Alison finally skidded to a stop a few feet away from the destruction, she could hear faint voices speaking as she continued to walk forward. The wind gusts that she had raced so rapidly against had stopped, a giant beam of blue light coming down from a doughnut like spaceship above New York City.

It was like the apocalypse had just come into a couple of blocks of New York and dumped itself at her feet. It was the worst possible situation that she could've ever thought that could happen when she saw a rainbow cross her vision inside of the Museum of Modern Art. 

"Hear me and rejoice." A voice was cockily saying, a voice that Alison was very unfamiliar with. It sounded.... almost alien, but the girl wasn't sure. She couldn't see anything from the four people staring at the person who was talking, their backs blocking her view of anything important. "You are about to die at the hands of the Children of Thanos."

Thanos.

That stopped Alison cold in her tracks. The rubble under her feet skidded silent as she stopped her movement, her mind flashing back to Absinthe, a not so friendly daughter of Thanos that she had fought a few years before. Was this it? The end that Absinthe had promised would come for Alison? Was this everything that she had been fearing inside of her mind since the day that the Asgardian left? 

Realizing that there was only one way for her to confront the problem, Alison continued walking, picking up her pace as her heart pounded inside of her chest. She was here- might as well help out rather than cower away in fear. "Be thankful that your meaningless lives are now contributing to the balance-" The child of Thanos continued, Alison realizing there was no backing out now. Making sure her mask was secure on her face, Ali was only a few steps away from the group when she heard Tony interrupt the alien.

"I'm sorry, Earth is closed today. You better pack it up and get outta here." He spoke, his Tony embellished with a flare that only Tony Stark could have. Tony was wearing tinted sunglasses, and an outfit that was a rather eccentric version of a workout outfit. It was totally him, in Alison's not so humble opinion, the billionaire sticking out among the three other figures that were there. 

Taking the final few steps to the line of people, Alison cleared her throat, catching the attention of everyone there. As she watched their heads turn, the young woman only recognized two of the four faces, trying to keep calm as she saw Tony's face fall. "Hey, Strange, Tony." Alison waved, coming into line to see the alien man in front of them. "Nice to see your lovely faces again."

"Alison." The man paused, giving her a one over. "How did you get here so fast? Actually, scratch that." Tony shut his eyes waving his hands in front of her, ignoring the alien and confrontation that was unfolding in front of him. "Even better question- what the hell are you doing here? 

"You come out of nowhere when you see a huge rainbow like beam fall through the sky, Tony." Alison retorted, her tone so obviously sarcastic as she placed her hands on her hips, gesturing to the building that she had seen the rainbow beam fall out of the sky from, the building a couple of blocks away. 

"Marnell, you better not of-" Strange started, dropping his hands from a defensive position . Looking back at the girl with the slightest inclination of his head, his facial expression was one of a serious tone. The man knew that if she started to mess with the strands of time that had been so delicately placed and woven together about this day- that there was no way that this was going to go anywhere beneficial. 

"I didn't." Alison interrupted, looking up at Strange with a trusting look, her eyes telling him everything that the wizard needed to know. "And I promise I won't." She stated, hiding her right hand behind her back, fingers crossed- just in case. She never was one to not cover all of her bases. "Tell me, what kind of shit show did you get us up against now?"

"Alison Marnell?" The alien, questioned, his voice peaking up at the mention of an all too familiar name. There was a surprised glint inside of his eyes as he scanned her appearance, seeing the young woman in front of him. Looking to his brother, the alien looked rather concerned... and... surprised.

"That's my name, don't wear it out." Alison fired back, looking at the alien through the window between Tony and Strange. Quirking an eyebrow at the alien in front of her, Ali could swear that his face molded into a nasty snarl, his face turning vicious as he spoke.

"You're supposed to be dead."

Clicking her tongue, Alison gave a small laugh. A son of Thanos, one of Absinthe's siblings, of course he would have that sort of idea about her. He didn't have all of the pieces to that puzzle that she had- Alison had the upper advantage. Well, except that she didn't know who he was, exactly, but she had figured that it was bad-very bad. "Oh, right. Guess your sister Arnora didn't complete her mission after all." She tried to keep a smirk plastered on her face as she continued to talk, but she couldn't help but feel a little worried as she continued to talk. Did this mean that their father- Thanos- was finally coming? Was that who her nightmares had been about?

"Alison." Tony turned to the girl, worry masking his face as his finally met hers for the first time within their conversation, his eyes searing contact into hers. His expression molded into one of seriousness as he saw the almost faltering look of smugness on Alison's face. "Is this about everything that happened-"

"I'm sure my sister will pay for her crimes." Ebony Maw interrupted Tony, not even bothering to listen to the man. His face molded into a scoff, sneering at Cull Obsidian with a face that was rather intimidating to everyone in his presence, not even worried about the fact that one of his siblings had failed to complete their task. 

"You have no quarrel with her." Strange interrupted, stepping in front of Alison, fully donned with his red cloak "wizard robes". "Your only fight-" He did some intricate hand motions, two golden and intricate glowing circles forming at the edge of his fists, something that Alison could barely clock before she saw the magical circles in front of her. "Is with me."

"Most certainly not." Ebony Maw scoffed, stepping a few feet closer to the heroes. His hands were now about even with with his shoulders, his fingers poised in a way that didn't mean anything good. "You and Miss Marnell both pose a problem with you both pertaining powers that relate to the time-"

"Yeah. Yeah." Alison interrupted the alien, having heard all of the words that the man was speaking before. She knew the speech that was about to go down, and she wasn't too keen on hearing it again. After all, it was just going to be another boring villain monologue. "Enough with the theatrics. I've heard it all before."

Ebony Maw let out an irritated growl, his eyes flicking over to his brother. Humans were an annoyance to the Son of Thanos, and his irritation with them was growing more evident with every second that he spent near them. Gesturing to the heroes in front of him he gave a light wave. "Deal with these extras. I'll get the stonekeeper and Marnell."

"You can most certainly try." Strange protested, still holding his magic steady as he stared into the eyes of the aliens in front of him. There was no way that he was backing down from this fight- not when there was so much at risk. "You are not getting this stone or her today."

Looking over to Tony, Alison tilted her head with worry. "What should I do?" She hissed quietly, looking at Tony with a hurried and expectant look. Her eyes flashed with the slightest hint of fear underneath her mask, the blue orbs giving him all the expressions that her face couldn't create all at once. Sure, she had expected to help out with some small skirmish- but fighting another alien, this time with no game plan? Bad idea. 

"Stay behind me, and if that Squidward face even gets an inch closer to you, you run like hell." Tony stated, still staring at the aliens as he addressed the person next to him, his mouth the only thing moving to acknowledge Alison. "Banner, you want a piece?"

Finally seeing the two other people that were in the battle, Alison's eyes fell upon Doctor Bruce Banner- someone who she thought she'd never meet. From what she had heard from Skylar, and basically anyone who had a brain in society, he had run off, never to be seen again years ago. But here he was, in the flesh, standing beside them. 

"No, not really. But when do I ever get what I want?" Bruce sighed, fidgeting with his shirt, like a small nervous tic that he had. Rubbing his hands together, his fingers clenched into fists as he looked almost like... well, like he was constipated. Green colored skin crawled up to his neck, crawling back down as soon as it came.

"That's right. Been a while." Tony replied stoically, hearing Bruce grunt has he tried to let the Hulk out of him. Alison looked over at the man, seeing green crawl up his skin only to fade away again. The man looked like he was in the middle of taking a shit, and not in an elegant way.

"Let me just.... let me concentrate for a second." Bruce whispered, his hands still clenched into fists as he tried to get the Hulk out. Alison tried to hold back a snort, and exchanged a glance with Strange, who had the most bamboozled look on his face.

"Where's your guy?" Tony asked, rotating his head to the side to stare at his friend. By this time, he had expected the Hulk to be beside him, the lumbering green giant already ready to attack the huge alien advancing towards them.

"I- I don't know. We've sort of been having a thing." Bruce panted, exhausted from the amount of energy that it took for him to try and draw the Hulk out from inside of him. He looked almost a little embarrassed by the fact that he couldn't bring him out, his cheeks tinged with just the slightest bit of pink.

"There's no time for a thing." Tony stated, rather agitated as he patted his friend's shoulder in an attempt to hurry up his "transformation." His sunglasses did little to hide the almost nervous glint in his eyes, seeing the alien approach them. "That's a thing right there, let's go."

Grunting once more, making a noise that Alison could only describe as taking a shit and it not coming out, Banner didn't look like he could Hulk out. Strange and Tony exchanged a look, and almost embarrassed subtone on his expression. "Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards."

Stopping his attempt to bring the Hulk out,Bruce gave a hesitant glance over at Tony. An apologetic glint flashed through his eyes as he gave a small wince, dreading the sentence that he was about to say next. "Tony, I'm sorry. Either he can't or I won't."

Tony, realizing the strain it was taking on his friend, stepped towards Bruce, gently pushing him towards Wong. "Hey, it's okay. Just- just stand down." Looking over at Wong, Tony gestured to Bruce. "Keep an eye on him, thank you."

Within seconds of handing Bruce off to Wong, Tony pulled the strings of the jacket he was wearing, double tapping what looked to be a new arc reactor in the center of his chest. Nanotechnology started to weave its way around Tony, covering up the clothes he was wearing, creating what could only be described as a really cool Iron Man suit.

Walking up to the alien, Tony's nanites built up a shield as the huge creature brought down his hammer, blocking the blow efficiently. Punching the alien promptly in the face, Tony stepped back, gaining distance and the perfect firing range for the huge repulsors that flew out of the back of his suit, blasting the alien far back behind the enemy lines.

"What the hell was that?" Alison exclaimed, shocked that the man had actually held off the alien with just his suit. She didn't expect him to fail, of course, but she didn't expect him to kick his ass that hard. With Tony and his suits, sometimes it was hard to realize once again the impact that it made when fighting off criminals and supervillains and aliens.

"Nanotech." Tony turned around to face the teenager and the wizards, a smile obvious through his tone as he talked. "You like it? It's a little something I-" Halfway through his sentence, Tony was sent flying up into the air, the other alien (the scary one who knew who Alison was ) sending him up into the sky.

"Oh shit!" Alison exclaimed, seeing Ebony Maw pick up two trees, twirling his fingers until the roots started to rapid fire at the heroes left. The battle had begun, everyone now on high alert after Tony had been so nonchalantly flung into the air. Wong reacted quickly, however, creating a shield to cover Strange, Banner, and Alison.

"Dr. Banner, if the rest of your green friend won't be joining us-" Strange started, opening up a portal with his sling ring, Bruce falling through with the back half of a taxi. Looking over at Alison, Strange inclined his head towards the empty street behind them. "You too, Alison. You don't want any part of this."

"You guys clearly need help, and I cannot go back to my field trip dressed in my suit. That would definitely cause some kids to ask way too many questions." Alison disagreed, standing her ground next to Strange. She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to make her point obvious as she gave him a look that showed her stance in all of it. "I'm staying."

"Figured." The man gave an exasperated sigh, not really surprised. He expected as much from the kid. Strange reached into his belt, throwing her a small bracelet that looked almost looked to be an artifact. "Here. This harnesses the energy from your speed and forces it onto a target, you're going to need some protection."

Nodding, Alison carefully clasped the bracelet around her wrist. A strange feeling overwhelmed her as the bracelet latched itself into place, feeling a surge of energy flow through her as it rested against her wrist. "Woah." She whispered, turning to Strange. "This is so-"

Before she could finish, Strange gave a gesture that meant that he heard she was grateful, his eyes laser focused on the alien in front of him. Casting a spell to block the incoming car towards them, Strange pulled his arms back, only to be bombarded by Tony, who fired his regulators at the thing, forcing it to fly towards the alien.

Maw easily cut the car in half, both pieces flying towards the building behind them, the collateral damage something that the alien didn't even consider. This dude was powerful- that was for damn sure. "Get the Stone outta here now." Tony commanded Strange, barely even moving his mask back to look back at the sorcerer.

"It- and the kid- stays with me." Strange rejected the command, heaving a heavy breath as he did so. Alison almost tried to protest, but Strange turned to her, arching an eyebrow back at her, the sly look on her face earlier when she had taken her stand now on his face. "You said you wanted to stay."

Clamping her lips shut, Alison decided that it would be best not to argue anymore, instead turning to Tony, who asked her a simple question. "Kid, you sure you wanna stay and do this? This isn't going to be anything like what you've faced before."

"It'll be fine." Alison tried to ease the man's worried glance at her, waving him away. She didn't want him to worry about her- after all, it was just going to be like a day out on patrol- this time with the A-listers. "Don't worry about it, I'll just stay on the ground and be backup. Nothing bad is gonna happen, I promise."

"Alright, I'm going to get out of here before he starts to attack the shit out of the both of you. Bye." Tony quipped, blasting off to try and attack the huge ass alien, the alien throwing his hammer at Tony, launching him through a building.

"Yikes, that's gotta hurt." Alison gave a wince, looking back at the alien in front of them. Squidward was picking up pieces of rock with his 'powers', twirling his fingers until they became razor sharp drills. They came whizzing towards them, Strange and Wong providing a sling ring portal for the rocks to fly through, the other side directed straight at the Squidward alien.

Using a car to block the rocks, the alien seemed confident in his abilities to beat the wizards and the speedster. That is, until one of the rocks hit its target, slicing the side of the alien's head, the creature letting out an annoyed grunt. He hadn't expected the retaliation back to be successful- that much was obvious. 

An annoyed grimace on his face, the injured alien reached out his hand, the fire hydrant shooting a hard streak of water at Wong, knocking him away from the battle. With another hand motion, the alien threw a half of a car towards Alison, the girl giving out a yelp as she ducked, the car barely hitting her shoulder, knocking her to the ground with a groan.

Strange, seeing Alison and Wong down, conjured a spell, lassoing the alien , who reacted quickly and threw Strange into the air with him. Slamming Strange down onto a building, the alien moved bricks to restrain the doctor so that he could grab the stone.

"Your powers are quaint." Maw cheekily remarked, an almost sneer-like smile forming at the edge of his face. "You must be popular with children." Reaching out to touch the stone, his hand clapped around it, the alien gave a yelp, seeing burn marks around the palm of his hand.

"It's a simple spell but quite unbreakable." Strange remarked, arching an eyebrow as he stared down the alien. It was a little like Indiana Jones, he supposed, but if it worked in the movies, well- why wouldn't it work in favor of him? He struggled for the words as his chest was constructed against the bricks, gravity forcing him towards the ground.

"Then I'll take it off your corpse." Maw hissed, the frustration in his voice becoming hostile as grabbing Strange by his cloak. The two were launched off of the building, crashing into a USPS mail truck as they tumbled to the ground.

Strange, getting himself back on balance, his cloak helping him out in the process, made some intricate gestures as the Eye of Agamotto opened, the green color of the stone shining bright in Alison's eyes. In that moment, something inside of her screaming at her to get up and do something.

Seeing Strange trying and failing to use the time stone, Alison knew she had to do something. Groaning, Alison slowly gathered herself up from the ground, her shoulder still screaming at her from the impact of half of a car. Whistling to grab the alien's attention, Alison stared at the child of Thanos straight in the eyes. "Hey! Snoke! How about you pick on someone your own size?"

Turning his attention to Alison, the alien gave yet another sneer, the wires slowly wrapping their way around Strange crawling back into the concrete. "Marnell." He sneered, the thought of the girl flashing across his face again. The mission that his sister had failed- the one thing  that his father had needed eliminated for his plans to work- was standing right in front of him. Something that had to be eliminated. 

"Alison, don't you dare." Strange warned her, knowing that if she didn't stay on the ground, nothing good would happen. Only one of the people who could mess with time could be the focus of Maw, and Strange would rather it be him than her.

"Son of Thanos." Alison fired back, her arms crossed in an almost calm stance. "Gotta say, I didn't expect to see anymore of you Children of Thanos. I thought when I kicked your sister's ass and told her to never come back here again that it included her siblings too! Guess I was wrong."

"I suppose I just have to complete her mission, finish what she started. Failure isn't tolerated from our father." Maw stated coldly, his hands getting ready to summon some sort of objects to block Alison and to potentially kill her. 

Although that... that would be done later.

"You're going to have to catch me first." Alison smirked, her eyes filled with a devilish bright blue glint. There was spirit in her eyes as she knew what was going to come next, her adrenaline spiking as she spoke. "What do you say, Son of Thanos?" She mocked, cocking her head to the side. "You up for a race with a super speedster?"

Speeding away, attempting to bring the attention away from Strange, Alison raced through the street, tilting her head ever so slightly to see Maw coming straight for her. Alison focused her attention back on the street, running past a park in which she saw Tony fighting off the other alien, and... Peter.

That made the situation ever so more complicated.

Alison knew that he would've come to something like this, especially after seeing a rainbow blast in the sky and a huge alien spaceship. But the fact that he was here scared her, not because she didn't want him here, but because she didn't want to lose him. The last time that there was an attack on New York.... well, Alison didn't really want to bring up memories that she had pushed away.

Almost distracted by her boyfriend, a huge piece of what looked like to be a lamppost whizzed past her, Maw making himself known again. "Shit!" She exclaimed, realizing that she had to go faster and move away from the whole situation. There was no time to sit and dwell about Peter, and there was no time for distractions.

Comms linked! A voice chimed in Alison's mask, signaling that the build in system had kicked in again. Who she was communicating with, the young woman didn't know. But she figured that she'd figure it out, the first voice that Alison heard being Tony's, giving her all of the answers that she needed. 

"Kid, I thought you were over with the wizards!" Tony sighed exasperatedly, almost irritated by the fact that now there were two superhero kids on the playing field. This was exactly the opposite of how he had wanted this day to go- two kids fighting for their lives and for New York when they should be at school, safe, away from the action. 

"And now I'm not." Alison shrugged, racing through another street, taking a sharp turn to try and knock off the alien on her tail. When another lamppost flew past her, Alison now muttering obscenities at the alien chasing her, she spoke again when she thought the coast was clear. "Look, Strange was at risk, and so was the time stone, I'm not about to let that filthy alien get that infinity stone."

"How do you know about-"

"Do you honestly think that this is my first encounter with the Children of Thanos? Or, for that matter, an infinity stone?" Alison gave a quick scoff, looking back to see that Maw was creeping closer. "Look, I don't have a lot of time, and I can't be talking for that much longer. But I promise that I'll explain everything, as soon as I draw him away. I'll head over to where you are after."

"Copy that." Tony heaved a heavy breath, blasting a monster as he heard the kid tell him her plans. There was too much going on, everything almost overwhelming as the man processed all of it. "Stay safe kid, you know your cousin would have my head if you didn't come back."

Alison almost winced when he mentioned Jackie, shaking the comment out of her head and focusing on trying to throw the alien off course. She would probably kill her when she got back from this whole field trip ordeal. "I'll make sure of it. Don't want to make her freak out more than she normally does when I go out."

Maw, finally done with trailing the girl, decided that the games that she had wanted to play with him were over. He was going to control the playing board now. Maw brought his hands up to stop launching things at her, instead throwing a mailbox from the sidewalk straight at her face.

"Oh shi-" Ali started, not being able to dodge the mailbox or finish her sentence before the world went black, her legs crumpling from underneath her as she fell to the ground. She could feel her body lifting up from the ground, floating up the air and away towards something that she could only assume mean something that wasn't any good.

Guess she wasn't coming home anytime soon now.

<~•~>

hey guys

welcome back !!

I'm so sorry that this book has taken me forever to revamp and bring back up- my old writing is kinda dull and bad so I'm adding in my newer style of writing while maintaining the skeleton of the old work.

also, admittedly, marvel is very hard to have inspo for, but I've surprisingly had some recently, and am slowly getting over my pain that the mcu has given me and am getting back into the fandom. I gotta give you all of Alison's three books anyways- right?

okay, before I go, I just wanna emphasize, PLEASE DO NOT DEMAND FOR ME TO UPDATE! marvel is the hardest for me to write for right now, so it's kinda irritating and uninspiring for me to consistently get those kinds of comments!

THE FICS THAT I UPDATE MOST WOULD BE MY STAR WARS FICS, SO IF YOU'RE INTO THAT I ADVISE YOU TO CHECK THOSE OUT FOR MORE OF MY WRITING!!

anyways I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you in the next one!