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Loki's face was a mask of cold, self-preserving fury. He stared into the scepter, his finger twitching on the comms button, but he didn't need to speak. He had heard "The Other's" final scream of frustration.
"With losers like you as my subordinates," Loki muttered, his voice a low, contemptuous snarl, "it seems Thanos is not as strong as he pretends to be."
He was cut short by a colossal roar that echoed from the still-open portal. The air above Manhattan suddenly darkened as the final reserve of the Chitauri army—the elite, the true shock troops—poured out of the wormhole like ink spilling across a page.
These were not the chitinous cannon fodder of the first wave. These were dark, heavily armored warriors, their joints inlaid with glowing blue energy crystals, their weapons massive and humming with focused power. Every joint was covered in hardened armor that screeched against the wind. This was the enemy's ultimate, desperate throw of the dice, personally augmented by Thanos himself.
"Loki! You traitor!" The disembodied voice of "The Other" boomed in the minds of the Chitauri, bypassing traditional comms. "I will make you pay! All Chitauri warriors—kill Loki and the Earth's guardians! Kill them all!"
The battle instantly escalated to a deadly, critical level.
On the ground, the Biting Kale, previously an unstoppable force, slowed down. Their sharp, serrated leaves screeched against the elite armor. They were still fighting, tearing and gnawing, but the annihilation was no longer instantaneous.
"Damn, they've hardened up!" Tony yelled into the comms, his voice strained as he jetted backward, barely dodging a focused blue energy blast that vaporized the pavement where he had been standing. "Jarvis, these aren't the same. Their armor compound is resisting the thermal shock!"
Steve, his shield deflecting an onslaught of heavy fire, grunted into the radio. "We need to close that portal, now! We can't beat this swarm. We're losing ground!"
Natasha's voice was urgent. "We have to get to Stark Tower! Tony, your idea! The Scepter!"
The Avengers knew they had hit their limit. They abandoned the ground fight and shot toward Stark Tower, where their only hope—the Mind Scepter—and the traitor, Loki, were waiting.
They crashed onto the ruined rooftop, battered, bruised, and spent. Loki was there, lounging on the remains of a sofa, a cynical, arrogant smile on his face. He had watched the entire desperate retreat.
"Finished already?" Loki drawled, setting aside a stolen glass of fine red wine. "And here I thought the heroes of Midgard would put up a slightly more entertaining fight." He gestured to the scepter resting on the table. "Don't worry. The solution is here. It's what I came for. It can close the door."
The Avengers, running on fumes, didn't hesitate. Tony strode forward, snatching the Scepter.
"Natasha, go!" Steve commanded. "Use the Scepter to reverse the polarity. Shut the damn thing down!"
Natasha nodded, already running toward the array.
"And wait!"
Hermione's voice, cold and absolutely terrifying, cut across the rooftop. She rose slowly into the air, her face lifted to the vast, swirling black hole above Manhattan.
"Why close the door?" she asked, her voice dangerously calm. "It's open. It's wide open. They are all here now." She looked from the terrified Avengers to the still-pouring enemy forces, a profound, chilling focus in her eyes. "The Earth is not a place for alien trash to come and go as they please. You line up to kill us? Fine. Then all of you will die here!"
The meaning of her words settled upon the Avengers with a suffocating weight. She wasn't closing the portal. She was locking it. She intended to slaughter the entire army in one final, comprehensive act.
Hermione rose higher, the Uru-metal wand pointed towards the endless, dark stream of incoming Chitauri. She began to channel the Ancient Magic, a cold, powerful force that flowed out, wrapping itself around the entire army.
"Animus Iunctum!" she whispered, the Ancient Magic Power Link expanding across the sky.
She was not aiming at one enemy. She was aiming at every single one of them—the ones in the air, the ones on the ground, and the thousands still pouring through the wormhole. Every enemy in the field was now connected by a single, terrifying, invisible conduit of pure, destructive magic.
She channeled the power, her eyes blazing with an ice-cold, terrible resolve. The air around her turned frigid.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The incantation was a shout, a final, definitive decree. A blinding bolt of sickly green light erupted from her wand, striking the first armored Chitauri soldier. The light didn't stop there. It spread instantly—a web of emerald energy—latching onto the next soldier, and the next, and the next, and streaming through the entire power link she had established. It was a chain reaction of absolute death.
The entire Chitauri army, spanning the distance from the top of the portal to the streets below, froze. All sound ceased. The air was silent, heavy, and permeated with the indescribable, chilling scent of instantaneous death.
Then, one by one, the vast, dark army of alien warriors—the elite shock troops, the armored gliders, the Leviathans—went slack. Their lights went out. Their bodies, robbed of life and momentum, began to fall.
"Pah, pah, pah…"
The sound of thousands of dead, heavy bodies hitting the streets, hitting the cars, and hitting the rubble below, was the only sound in all of Manhattan. It was the chilling, final, and absolute end of the Chitauri invasion.