Hero Association Online Part 15
The moment Supergiant saw Peter break free from her control, her expression changed.
But she didn't have time to think about it.
The man who had appeared out of nowhere suddenly vanished.
A crimson flash cut through the air, and the next second he was standing right in front of her.
Supergiant barely had time to even raise a hand or try to control Owen before his hand grabbed her by the face and slammed her into the ground, causing a massive explosion.
"BOOOM!"
The concrete split apart beneath the impact.
Strange, who was still floating unconscious nearby, dropped slightly as the force keeping him suspended disappeared.
Before he could hit the ground, his red Cloak moved on its own and caught him, immediately carrying him away from the battlefield at high speed, as if it understood it had to get him to safety.
Tony glanced at it for a moment.
"Good. At least somebody's doing their job."
Ebony Maw saw what had happened, and his expression shifted somewhere between furious...
...and afraid.
Supergiant shot out of the crater, putting distance between herself and Owen as white energy covered her hands.
"Kill him!"
The command was directed at Hulk.
But Hulk, who had been just about to punch Hercules, froze for a moment, his fist hanging in the air.
Not because he was obeying Supergiant's order.
Hercules raised an eyebrow and smiled.
"Looks like we're done here," he said calmly as he watched Hulk's eyes briefly turn red.
The giant shook his head, looked at Hercules in confusion for a moment, then turned to look around the battlefield...
And especially at Supergiant.
"BAD WOMAN!" Hulk roared angrily.
Supergiant, naturally, looked completely incredulous as yet another one slipped out of her control.
But then she slowly lifted her gaze.
Wrapped in Chaos Magic as crimson as blood, Wanda slowly descended onto the street, her hair drifting in the energy surrounding her, wearing an expression that carried very little patience.
Her clothes were covered in dust and marked with several cuts.
The first thing she did was give her husband an annoyed look.
"You're late," Owen said with a faint smile, already knowing exactly why Wanda was upset.
But, like any good husband, he decided to ignore it.
Though there was a very good chance he'd be sleeping on the couch tonight.
Wanda then looked toward Supergiant and gave her an equally annoyed stare.
Though she was interrupted by Hercules's cheerful laughter as he started patting Hulk on the shoulder, completely ignoring the battlefield.
"Ha! Welcome back, my great green friend!"
Hulk stopped looking at Supergiant and glanced at the destroyed buildings around him.
Then he looked at Hercules, who, despite appearing perfectly healthy, still bore a few marks from the giant's punches.
Of course, for the son of Zeus, they weren't much.
Even so, Hulk seemed to grow a little sad.
"Hulk hit much," he said, looking guiltily at his own hands.
"Yes," Owen immediately replied with an incredibly reassuring smile. "But don't worry. Nobody got hurt. The Hero Association will take care of everything. We have plenty of rich sponsors," he added calmly.
Hearing Owen's words, Hulk let out a small sigh of relief.
For a moment, Tony couldn't help developing a twitch in his expression, because one of those rich sponsors happened to be him.
But he didn't have time to mourn the loss of only a few billion dollars.
Ebony Maw raised both hands.
The nearby buildings began to groan.
Hundreds of chunks of concrete, steel, and glass rose around him, forming an ever-growing storm.
Everyone's attention shifted toward the alien, who, wearing a furious expression, seemed to be pouring every last ounce of power left in his body into the attack.
But Owen didn't move.
He simply gave him a brief glance before looking back at Supergiant, who was carefully watching both him and Wanda while searching for Strange, who had been placed atop a distant building by his own Cloak.
"You... This battle of yours is only delaying the inevitable," Supergiant said.
...
Tony fired several beams from the floating cannons that had formed behind his shoulders through his nanotechnology.
Barton released three arrows that split apart in midair.
And from several kilometers away, Nicolás fired once again.
The coin pierced through the storm of debris like a streak of light.
Ebony Maw blocked the shield.
Deflected Tony's beams.
Caught two of the arrows.
But the third exploded behind him.
And Nicolás's coin punched through his defenses, carving a deep wound into his side.
Ebony Maw let out a scream of pain.
"You damned persistent apes!" he roared furiously.
Then a flying axe came hurtling toward him, forcing him to dodge.
But a shield bearing a star at its center slammed into his face, leaving a gash and making him momentarily lose his balance as he floated in the air.
That opening allowed one of Tony's energy blasts to strike him square in the chest, sending him crashing into a nearby ruined building.
"It's time to end this," Steve said in a serious tone as the shield returned to his hand.
Then he pulled on the axe's chain, bringing it back into his other hand as well.
…
Wanda raised a hand, and the rubble shot toward Supergiant at tremendous speed, trying to crush her.
She tried to float higher.
But a green hand came flying in from the side and struck her hard enough to send her crashing back to the ground.
"BOOM!"
"Hulk not like weird woman."
A massive chunk of rubble under Wanda's control immediately came crashing down toward the same spot.
But Supergiant skimmed just above the street, barely managing to dodge it before the rubble crashed down and disrupted her flight, sending her rolling several meters across the ground.
Before she could stand back up, Wanda appeared above her.
This time, she didn't strike.
She simply closed her hand.
Suddenly, Supergiant felt her entire body caught inside an invisible hand that prevented her from moving.
Supergiant's eyes widened in confusion, as though it had never once crossed her mind that she might experience the same thing she inflicted upon her enemies... those trapped under her own power.
She opened her mouth.
"I can still—"
But before she could finish, a crimson flash streaked past.
Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her chest.
With great difficulty, she tried to lower her gaze, struggling against Wanda's hold over her body.
Then her eyes widened in disbelief.
There was a hole straight through her heart.
And a wire attached to it.
Then she felt a tug.
She watched as a dagger slid back out before returning to Owen's hand.
"Sorry. We don't have time to show mercy to our enemies," Owen said coldly.
He didn't even spare her another glance to see whether she was still alive before turning his eyes toward Ebony Maw, who suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of danger and spun around.
Then Owen vanished, wrapped in a crimson flash.
By the time Ebony Maw realized it, Owen was already beside him, bringing down a descending kick that crackled with crimson energy, growing more violent with every millimeter it traveled.
To Ebony Maw...
It felt like everything had slowed down.
He could see the kick as though it were happening in slow motion.
But it crashed into his chest at a speed impossible to follow with the naked eye.
Even Pietro, despite being a speedster, barely managed to catch the instant Ebony Maw's body disappeared, blasted away at incredible speed toward the ground.
"BOOM!"
The concrete exploded apart.
The shockwave scattered every cloud of dust, blasting it across the battlefield.
And in the brief silence that followed, all the debris Ebony Maw had been controlling began falling like rain across the battlefield.
"As terrifying as ever," Tony said, unable to hide how depressed he felt knowing that even with several of them fighting together, it had taken so much just to defeat either one of those two.
Owen had needed only a few seconds.
"Finally," Pietro said, letting out a long sigh as he dropped to the ground, sitting down and supporting himself with both hands, completely exhausted.
Peter looked at his own hands as though trying to remember what had just happened.
He had no idea what he was supposed to do now.
But he didn't have much time to think about it.
An intense pain suddenly spread through his entire body, making him collapse to the ground.
"What...? Why?" he asked, unable to understand why he was in so much pain, especially in his bones.
Part of his suit had been torn apart as well.
Seeing him like that, Pietro couldn't help smiling in satisfaction after all the trouble the brat had put him through earlier.
Tony descended from the sky while looking over all the destruction left behind.
"Looks like the cleanup crew is going to have a pretty serious job this time. Friday, begin to—"
"We're not done yet," Owen interrupted.
The heroes present immediately looked at him in confusion.
Then they noticed Owen had landed on the ground.
His eyes were fixed on the sky.
Wanda's were too.
Even Hercules's smile disappeared as his gaze locked onto the exact same spot.
"What is it?" Steve asked seriously as he noticed all of them staring upward, trying to find whatever they were looking at.
But for a few moments...
He saw nothing.
Then the sky lit up with a familiar blue energy.
His suit was completely destroyed.
His body was covered in wounds.
Blood ran down his face.
He was flying straight toward them in a hurry.
Tony's eyes widened the instant he recognized him.
"Adam...?"
Blue Marvel didn't slow down as he flew toward them.
If anything, he accelerated the moment he saw them.
The next instant he finally arrived, allowing his body to crash into the ground without even trying to stop, showing just how desperate he had been to get there.
The impact shook everything around them.
He remained on one knee, breathing heavily with obvious difficulty.
His eyes, which always carried an almost unbreakable calm, were now filled with exhaustion...
And urgency.
"I'm sorry..." he said regretfully. "I did everything I could, but... I couldn't stop them," he said seriously, especially as he raised his eyes toward Owen.
"You did well. You bought us plenty of time," Owen replied calmly.
But his own expression hardened as well.
The others clearly didn't understand.
"What is he talking about?" Tony asked.
At that same moment, alarms began blaring through his helmet as Friday spoke.
"Sir, multiple unidentified ships have been detected approaching Earth's atmosphere," Friday reported immediately.
"...They're here," Owen said, as though he had been expecting this all along.
Steve looked up.
Not just him.
Everyone saw it.
The sky began to darken.
Hundreds of ships were appearing above the Earth.
Small ones.
Medium-sized ones.
Massive ones.
One after another.
Until they covered the entire horizon.
And at the center of that fleet, far larger than all the others, a dark warship advanced slowly...
As though the sky itself belonged to it.
The real war had just begun.