In terms of combat power, even if the number of these police officers were doubled, they wouldn't pose as much of a threat as the Hydra soldiers and the Latveria criminals.
The superheroes could fight the villains without reservation—and quite a few people had died in the battle just now.
However, they couldn't possibly unleash their full force on the police; that was simply not something "superheroes" were supposed to do.
Especially after hearing Loki's claim... had someone among them slaughtered over a thousand people in Latveria?
"Who?" Suspicion spread rapidly among the superheroes.
Everyone exchanged glances, with almost every person subtly putting distance between themselves and the others to avoid being misunderstood.
The superheroes, who had managed to get acquainted during the battle earlier, divided once more into several distinct groups.
Doctor Octopus and Morbius from the Justice League formed one group; Captain America's makeshift team formed another; the Avengers made up a third; and the remaining heroes—Wolverine, Blade, Black Knight, and others—grouped together.
As for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cybernetically enhanced agents, they formed a separate group of their own, keeping Quake, Daisy Johnson, excluded on the outside.
Daredevil, Wolverine, Jessica Jones, Hawkeye, and Black Widow had flickering gazes.
They were aware of what Loki was referring to, but as for the specific details, they knew nothing.
Still, they were well aware that they likely couldn't wash their hands clean of the matter.
Captain America, on the other hand, seemed to know something. He merely looked around at his surroundings and chose not to speak up just yet.
He had recognized Wolverine and Jessica Jones—whom he had secretly sought out before—back when they were fighting Hydra, but knowing them was of no use now.
Captain America was waiting for the right moment.
The superheroes were not entirely silent, either. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, who possessed a hot temper, couldn't understand a thing about Latveria and simply blurted out:
"Slaughter? Slaughtering Hydra? Make yourself clear!"
Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards, reached up to stroke his head. He remembered Latveria as the homeland of his former friend and classmate, Victor von Doom.
He did know about the disaster two years ago in which an entire castle in Latveria was leveled, leaving nearly a thousand casualties, but Reed didn't care much for it back then and was similarly ignorant of the details.
Seeing the superheroes look at one another in confusion, Loki grinned triumphantly and took a few steps back, hiding behind the police:
"Slaughtering civilians, naturally."
"Where's the evidence?" Human Torch pressed on, determined to get to the bottom of it.
"Evidence is hard to bring over, but I do have a witness," Loki said with a loud laugh, waving a hand toward his back.
Apart from the front row of officers holding riot shields, the police behind them immediately parted to form an aisle.
Standing at the end of the aisle was a stooped, hunchbacked woman.
She kept her head down, her clothes tattered and torn. As the police cleared a path, she raised her head, revealing a gaunt, sallow face.
Clang, clang, clang! She walked forward step by step. The sound of her steps was not the ordinary pitter-patter of human footsteps, but sounded like metal striking the ground.
Daredevil tilted his ear, becoming aware of the woman's condition before anyone else. His brows knitted tightly under his mask.
She wasn't in his memory, yet he felt an odd sense of familiarity about her.
When the gaunt woman passed the police and stood in front of the superheroes, several people couldn't help but gasp.
Flesh was completely missing from half of her neck; in its place were dark green flexible hoses and several metal brackets supporting her head.
Her face was not merely gaunt, either—her muscles had withered away, leaving only loose skin sagging down.
Most of her normal limbs and organs were likewise missing, replaced by metallic components.
The reason her footsteps sounded so strange earlier was that her lower body had vanished entirely, replaced by two mechanical legs.
"Here is my witness. Just look at her state, tsk tsk tsk..." Loki's voice drifted from behind the police. "Don't ask me why there's only one witness."
"Everyone else was killed by you 'heroes.' Oh, by the way, her name is Ms. Lucia von Bardas."
Ms. Lucia's eyes swept across the superheroes. Her gaze paused briefly on Adrian Toomes, Vulture, and a smile stretched across her sagging face:
"Heh."
Vulture was clearly not Ms. Lucia's target right now. She looked toward the grim-faced Captain America and Wolverine's group:
"What, don't recognize me?"
"Am I supposed to recognize you?" Wolverine asked in a low, heavy voice.
"Of course you don't recognize this face," Ms. Lucia said.
With that, she extended a finger, using a razor-sharp metallic tip to slice open her own sagging skin, shoving her finger straight into the wound.
Her slender finger propped up the skin from beneath, making Ms. Lucia look like a terrifying demon. She asked once more:
"How about now? Recognize me?"
*** Inside the Batcave on Bat-Island.
Venom Robin wished he had eyes like a human so he could pop his eyeballs out right now.
If everything Batman tinkered with in the past still fell under the domain of science—which Venom Robin didn't understand, but could certainly learn if he tried—this was different.
Now, Batman insisted he didn't know magic and claimed the magic array Khonshu, the Moon God, taught him was a complete scam.
How on earth did the Old Bat manage to pull Thor, the God of Thunder, out of thin air then?
Venom Robin wanted to demand a clear answer, but Batman gave him no chance to ask.
After rescuing Thor from the Realm of Silence, Batman immediately set about doing another task:
Hacking into the Pentagon to search for information regarding Latveria from two years ago.
Previously, Batman hadn't linked the Latveria incident to the United States government. But now, Loki's appearance made Batman suspect that the issue lay not with S.H.I.E.L.D., but with the U.S. government—or rather, the President himself.
Standing to the side with wide eyes, Venom Robin also came to understand the full cause and effect behind the Latveria slaughter.
By the time Batman went through the Pentagon's secret reports one by one and uncovered the whole truth, the battle in Manhattan had already come to a halt.
Taking a glance at the monitoring network feed composed of the few remaining cameras, Batman patted Venom Robin on the shoulder:
"Robin, let's go."
"Old Bat, based on the intel we just saw... we should go find Nick Fury right now," Venom Robin offered a rare counter-idea to Batman's plan.
Batman simply shook his head, handing Robin a piece of chocolate:
"I already found Nick Fury before the war even started."
"Where is he?"
"Just follow me."
Venom Robin swallowed the chocolate in one gulp and quickly caught up with Batman:
"Did Captain America take Nick Fury away from S.H.I.E.L.D.? Is that why you couldn't find him at first?"
Batman replied in a deep, low voice:
"Yes. But Captain America miscalculated one thing—Nick Fury is also a top-tier operative."
"He locked Nick in a basement, and now, Nick Fury has escaped."
"Oh." Venom Robin wasn't worried about Nick Fury escaping in the slightest.
Now that the Old Bat knew about it, where else could Fury possibly run? After all, the "non-magical" Old Bat could somehow conjure up Thor himself.
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