Hawk reined in the fire burning inside him.
He didn't charge off toward Manhattan to join the main battlefield.
Above that skyline, the Leviathan war beasts—the Chitauri's biomechanical siege engines—were pouring through the portal, screeching as they unfurled their massive armored bodies, plated in heavy alloys like mobile fortresses.
Whether he could fight one or not was beside the point.
Just looking at those things… they were in a whole different weight class.
If he had his Cloth—his Saint Armor—maybe he'd go toe-to-toe with them.
But right now?
Not worth it.
Besides, Queens had plenty of Chitauri.
Swarming like locusts.
Manhattan was the Avengers' battlefield.
It wasn't his.
Sure, he was stronger now.
But strength was just the beginning.
Awakening the Microcosm was the start.
Not the peak. Not the finish line.
So instead of picking fights with alien dragons downtown, Hawk squatted by the ruins of his own block and went full ambush mode—just another survivor hiding in the shadows.
He'd wait.
Because he knew how this worked: once the Chitauri received the death signals of their fallen, they'd send reinforcements.
Let the fish jump into the net.
No need to chase.
Besides, they could fly.
He couldn't.
And more importantly—
This was the poor end of town.
What did that mean?
Let's put it this way:
If someone called 911 from this block, the ambulance might show up in thirty minutes—if it showed up.
Meanwhile, in Manhattan's rich neighborhoods?
Three minutes, tops.
Same went for surveillance.
In the upper districts, even the trash bins in the alleys had cameras trained on them.
Out here?
The main street didn't even have a working traffic cam. And if one did exist, it was probably yanked off by a kid with a screwdriver and pawned off the same night.
So yeah.
No one was coming.
Perfect hunting ground.
It didn't take long.
Crouched in the shadows, Hawk spotted two Chitauri soldiers speeding in from the east, responding to the death signals of their fallen comrades.
His eyes lit up.
Two minutes later—
> THUD.
THUD.
Two more ugly corpses hit the rubble, landing neatly beside the first pair Hawk had oh-so-helpfully arranged in plain sight.
The two destroyed hovercrafts, now pilotless, automatically reoriented and flew back toward their mother ship.
Hawk watched without blinking, then silently melted back into the shadows.
One minute later.
The casualty spike in Queens triggered a high-priority alert in the Chitauri mothership orbiting beyond the portal.
In response, a signal streaked down from the sky.
Moments later—
The Chitauri troops patrolling nearby, who had been gleefully torching buildings and vaporizing cars, suddenly stopped.
As the command buzzed through their neural implants, they turned in unison, shrieking as they sped off toward the real threat—toward Jackson Heights.
They regrouped midair.
At the lead was a taller, more heavily armored Chitauri commander, riding a larger and far more grotesque-looking hovercraft.
Six others flanked him.
And then—
They saw it.
Four Chitauri corpses, twisted and broken, arranged neatly in the center of the ruined street.
> "Skrik! Skrrrah!"
"Chit-krassss!"
The commander and his six troopers froze.
For a brief second, they hesitated.
Then the order came.
Hovercrafts revved.
The squad dispersed instantly, forming a tight ring around the area from the sky, locking down the perimeter.
No hesitation.
No mercy.
Cold, mechanical reflexes kicked in.
All triggers pulled.
> BOOM. BOOM. BOOM!
Energy blasts rained from the sky like hellfire.
A net of plasma bolts turned the neighborhood into a flaming crater.
Buildings exploded.
Roads split open.
Cars burst into fireballs.
The air itself seemed to ignite under the barrage.
The Chitauri didn't stop.
Their emotionless, bug-like faces stared blankly as their clawed fingers held the triggers down.
They kept firing until the block was nothing but a wasteland of rubble and smoke.
Not a whisper of life left.
Only then—when their ammo had run dry and the commander ceased firing—did the others stop.
The block was gone.
Old buildings—flattened.
Vehicles—still smoldering.
This wasn't just Queens anymore.
This was postwar Baghdad.
The commander's massive, green-glowing eyes scanned the devastation one last time. Satisfied, he turned away.
New orders came in.
Mission complete.
No lifeforms survived.
Of course not.
Earthlings—these backward primitives who couldn't even escape their own gravity—had no business surviving a Chitauri strike.
So the mothership issued the next command.
Time to move on.
The commander turned his hovercraft.
The six others followed, banking one by one.
And that's when it happened.
One of them—just as he finished his turn—jerked violently forward.
His spine snapped into a grotesque arch, like a shrimp thrown into boiling water.
> SPLURT!
His chest plate ruptured.
A fist-sized hole exploded through his torso.
And then—
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
All five remaining Chitauri soldiers spasmed as their chests burst open, blood spraying like crushed fruit.
They didn't even see it coming.
From behind—just as they turned their backs—their chests exploded as if punched clean through.
Six clean kills.
Only after the carnage—
Only after the bodies began to fall—
Did the sound finally arrive.
> BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
Six thunderclaps.
The Chitauri commander, still mid-turn, froze.
He looked up—instinctively—and leapt off his hovercraft without hesitation.
Just in time.
Because a half-second later—
> BOOM!!
His craft detonated midair, ripped apart by an unseen strike.
Flaming debris rained down on the ruins below.