"The Chitauri are invading New York?" Thor's surprised voice immediately rang out, as he stared at the big screen and asked in astonishment.
Thor then remembered something and glanced at Nick Fury, asking, "Is this what you were talking about, the Battle of New York?"
"That's right, Thor, this is the Battle of New York! It's a war where the Chitauri invaded New York!" Nick Fury nodded firmly.
"The Chitauri? They wouldn't dare." Thor shook his head immediately. "My father's reputation would scare them away from the Nine Realms. Someone must be backing them!"
"Thor, didn't you say the Chitauri were interstellar mercenaries?" Black Widow looked at Thor with a meaningful gaze. "Do you want to know who's behind it?"
"That Thanos?"
Thor pondered for a moment. "Wait a minute, Thanos... No wonder you asked me about Thanos and the Chitauri before; it wasn't just idle chatter."
Thor, with his notoriously slow reaction time, finally caught up.
Furthermore, everyone had analyzed the previous questions. Thanos was likely behind the Battle of New York, the Battle of Wakanda, and the final battle. So, Thor naturally guessed Thanos this time.
"Thanos may be the ultimate mastermind, but there's a direct mastermind behind the Chitauri," Black Widow corrected Thor. "That direct mastermind is your brother, Loki."
"Loki?" Thor was stunned, shaking his head in disbelief. "That's absolutely impossible! My brother isn't that kind of person!"
"Thor, this is the future predicted by the quiz system; it won't be wrong," Nick Fury said seriously to Thor.
"You must have gotten something wrong; this isn't possible." Thor still couldn't accept it.
"Alright, we can discuss later whether Loki is the mastermind. For now, let's focus on analyzing the question," Captain America interrupted the discussion, addressing them.
"Fine!" Thor nodded.
Nick Fury and Black Widow also regained their composure.
"Nick Fury, you said that during the Battle of New York, Stark carried a nuclear missile into the portal and destroyed the entire Chitauri fleet, so should the answer be A?" Captain America asked, looking at Nick Fury with a serious expression.
"Logically, yes, but if we choose A, wouldn't the question be too easy?" Black Widow felt something wasn't right.
The system had shown the scene of Tony Stark carrying a nuclear missile into the portal, which was the same as the system telling everyone the answer for free. It didn't even require anyone to think.
Although the difficulty of the system's questions varied, and some were indeed relatively simple, this was too easy, wasn't it?
"No, we can't just jump to that conclusion." Tony Stark shook his head. "The image only showed me detonating the nuke, nothing more."
"We don't know what exactly happened after the nuclear explosion."
"We saw the Chitauri fleet. That scale… a nuke could wipe them all out," Nick Fury added.
Without waiting for any objections, Nick Fury began to analyze the situation from a different angle. "But we also saw that the portal opened to the vastness of space!"
"No matter how powerful a nuke is, it can't cover all of space. So, the Chitauri could still bring in other fleets."
No one disagreed with this point; it was perfectly logical. Everyone agreed.
"In other words, after Stark destroyed the first wave of the Chitauri fleet, the Chitauri brought in other fleets, and then someone in the options eliminated them all?"
Thor sized up the people in the options, then shook his head. "I don't think anyone could do that."
"No! Of course, no one could do that!" Black Widow nodded, her eyes gleaming. "The Director is right. Even if one fleet is destroyed, the enemy can send a second. The key isn't how many are destroyed. The key is…"
"The portal!" Tony Stark interrupted Black Widow.
Nick Fury, Captain America, and the others slowly nodded in agreement. It wasn't just because leaving the portal open meant a constant stream of enemies.
They also knew that ending the war by simply killing the enemy was unreliable.
Who killed the most? Who destroyed the last enemy force? Would that be who ended the war?
Clearly not.
"So, what this question is really asking is, which of the four options closed the portal?" Coulson summarized everyone's points, revealing the true nature of the question.
"If that's the case, Stark can be ruled out," Black Widow immediately declared.
"He sent the nuke through the portal and then fell unconscious, plummeting from a great height."
"And from the last question, we know that at this point, there were still many Chitauri wreaking havoc in New York City. Stark's situation is probably not good."
"Although we don't know how he was ultimately saved, Stark should be 'offline' for a while during the upcoming battle."
The situation at the time was such that the military couldn't handle it, and they were entirely relying on the Avengers, that "response team."
The higher-ups at S.H.I.E.L.D. ultimately had to make the decision to launch a nuclear missile at New York. Obviously, the Avengers' situation wasn't looking good; they didn't think the Avengers could win.
It was imaginable just how grueling the battle for the Avengers must have been.
In that situation, no one thought Stark would receive timely and effective rescue after falling from such a height.
The most likely scenario was that everyone would be too preoccupied with their own struggles to worry about Stark.
Black Widow was right; the most likely outcome for Tony Stark was to be "offline" temporarily.
Both Nick Fury and Tony Stark, who had personally watched the footage at the time, were in complete agreement.
"Alright, let's rule out Stark for now." Captain America glanced at Tony Stark, who didn't seem to object. He continued, "What about BCD? Thor, if Loki opened the portal, can you close it?"
"I don't believe Loki would do such a thing..."
"If! Thor, just if!" Captain America emphasized heavily, "If Loki used the Tesseract to open the portal, could you close it?"
....
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