Locke had absolutely no intention of flying through the Gates of Hell. That was the kind of suicidal move only an idiot would make, and he had no interest in gambling his own life on whether or not he could ever find a way back. In the final instant before the missile reached the red beam, he unleashed Flash with everything he had.
A burst of blinding light swallowed him and the missile whole. The flare was so bright that nobody watching could possibly tell what had actually happened. To everyone on the ground, it looked as though the missile and the man carrying it had plunged together into the Hell Gate in one final act of heroic sacrifice.
But the truth was completely different. The missile never entered the red pillar at all. Just before impact, it vanished at point-blank range, because Locke had already opened the Absolute Zero Domain and dumped the missile inside.
The effect was immediate. The instant the warhead crossed into that frozen space, the high-speed missile came to a dead stop, suspended in stillness with its destructive power locked in place. With that threat neutralized, Locke drove the Thunder Armor straight into the Midtown Financial Building.
He tore through the structure and plunged all the way down to the lower levels, intending to shut off the red beam himself. But before he could do anything, the pillar flickered several times and died on its own. It seemed Mephisto, realizing his invasion had failed, had decided to close the Hell Gate personally rather than continue wasting power on a losing battle.
No one else knew that, of course. From the point of view of the Avengers and everyone watching, Locke had thrown away his life to save New York. He had carried a nuclear missile to what looked like certain death, all to protect the city, the people in it, and every hero still fighting on the ground.
What was a hero supposed to be? In their eyes, this was the answer.
As the surviving heroes stood there grieving, some openly mourning him, the sky above the financial district suddenly darkened again. Thick storm clouds rolled over Midtown Manhattan, spreading across the skyline with a presence that every one of them recognized instantly.
Their eyes widened. This was impossible.
The Hell Gate in the building had already closed, but the demons near it were still rampaging through the area, ripping through the ruins in blind fury. If Locke was going to play the hero, then apparently he planned to finish the job properly.
Raising Mjolnir once more, he summoned another thunderstorm. A vast lightning-filled cloud gathered overhead, and then the judgment began. Bolt after bolt came crashing down in relentless succession, frying every demon in sight until the streets were littered with smoking black corpses and charred bone.
That was the moment New York truly emerged from the disaster. The invasion was over, the gates were shut, and the monsters still left behind were being erased by divine thunder from the sky.
When people saw Locke standing there in midair, wrapped in lightning, armor gleaming beneath the storm, cheers began to rise from the streets below. They spread fast, rolling through neighborhoods, across avenues, over wrecked cars, broken glass, and burning rubble, until they became one massive wave of sound.
By then, he had already become something more than a man. He had become a legend.
…
In the days that followed, every major news outlet in the world rushed to cover the catastrophe in New York. The scale of the disaster was almost impossible to process. Tens of thousands were dead. Millions had suffered direct losses. Tens of millions more had been affected by the political, economic, and psychological shockwaves that followed.
And the worst part was that it was hard to even define the cause cleanly. In a sense, the chain of events could be traced back to the last Stark factory missile incident. Or maybe to the earthquake night in Manhattan. But this time the casualties were on an entirely different level, far beyond anything the world had seen before.
This wasn't just another superhuman incident. This had been a large-scale demonic invasion of one of the most important cities on Earth.
Global public opinion exploded into chaos. Panic spread everywhere, and every country seemed to be arguing over a different part of the nightmare. Some people asked why these catastrophic events kept happening one after another. Others asked why they kept happening specifically in New York.
Many more focused on one question above all the rest. How had the Savior of New York managed to save the city again?
There were religious debates too, and they were getting louder by the day. People demanded answers from churches, from the Vatican, from every spiritual institution that had ever claimed to speak for heaven. Where was God? Where were the angels? If hell could invade in broad daylight, then why had heaven stayed silent?
Others took a more practical view. If something like this happened in another region, one without Avengers, without mutants, without a man like Locke, what were ordinary people supposed to do then? Some commentators immediately argued that the United States had no right to keep the Avengers and the Savior limited to New York. Men like that didn't belong to one city or one nation. They belonged to the world.
Of course, not everyone agreed. There were just as many voices claiming that the United States had brought this catastrophe on itself through its own crimes, and that the disasters were divine punishment. According to that crowd, the Avengers were better off staying in America rather than carrying that bad luck overseas.
While the world argued, New York's media went feral. At this point, anything connected to the Avengers or the Savior got a respectful tone. Everything else got dragged out into the open and torn apart. If necessary, they looked ready to curse out every politician, bureaucrat, and stray dog in the tri-state area just to vent their rage.
The places taking the heaviest fire were obvious. The White House. The Pentagon. The Oval Office.
"I can't believe those bastards in the White House actually dared to launch a nuke at New York!" one furious anchor screamed live on air. "Do they have any idea how many people live here? Who the hell are they to decide whether we live or die? They didn't send troops to save us, but they were perfectly happy to drop a nuclear missile on us instead!"
Among the nearly unhinged New York press corps, the loudest and most seasoned voice belonged, of course, to J. Jonah Jameson.
But Jameson wasn't just aiming at Washington. He had picked a different target.
S.H.I.E.L.D.
Holding up a photograph of Hawkeye after his transformation, Jameson slammed a hand onto his desk hard enough to rattle everything on it. "Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce a world-class villain. This man fought the Savior for hundreds of exchanges over New York. But do you know who he really is? No, of course you don't."
He jabbed a finger at the image and leaned toward the camera. "His name is Clint Barton. And he is a top agent from a secret organization called the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. That's right. S.H.I.E.L.D. The same agency that takes mountains of taxpayer money every year while claiming it exists to protect us."
Jameson's face was red with fury by then, and his voice only got louder. "And now we know one of their senior agents was working with the Lord of Hell to invade New York. So let's ask the obvious question. What exactly is S.H.I.E.L.D. protecting? The world, or the people trying to destroy it?"
Then he pulled out a photograph of Nick Fury.
"Allow me to introduce the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury. This man needs to answer some very simple questions. Did he know one of his people was in league with the devil? If he knew, why didn't he stop it? If he didn't know, then what exactly qualifies him to run an organization this dangerous? And what, exactly, is his relationship with the White House that tried to nuke New York off the map?"
At the end of the broadcast, Jameson stood up from behind the desk and shouted at the top of his lungs.
"The people of New York will not be fooled! We built this country. We bled for this country. We helped make it rich, and we refuse to be bombed like animals because some cowards in Washington are afraid. The White House will hear our voice. The Pentagon will hear our voice. The whole damn world will hear our voice!"
After reading Jameson's report, Locke couldn't help rubbing the back of his neck. The old man really had a death wish, didn't he? Going after the president was already dangerous enough, but taking a flamethrower to Nick Fury at the same time was practically begging to be targeted.
Still, Locke loved it. He hadn't even needed to pay the guy.
Jameson's broadcast hit New York like a bomb of its own. Then it spread beyond the city, beyond the state, beyond America itself.
Within hours, factories across New York shut down. Shops closed. Students walked out of class. Streets filled up with people carrying signs, shouting slogans, and marching in numbers so large they swallowed whole blocks.
Some roared that the president should kill himself to apologize. Others screamed that if the United States didn't want New York, then New York didn't need the United States. Still others demanded Fury's downfall, calling S.H.I.E.L.D. an enemy of mankind and accusing it of colluding with hell itself.
What began as a million-man march in New York grew with terrifying speed. First tens of millions across the country. Then more. Every city seemed to catch fire politically.
No one could accept the idea that the president of the United States had been willing to order the destruction of the country's greatest city. If New York could be sacrificed, then what city would be next? Los Angeles? Chicago? Anywhere unlucky enough to become inconvenient?
And on top of that, people wanted answers about Fury. Was he connected to the hell conspiracy? Had he covered for Barton? Was his position itself tied to some larger corruption inside the federal government?
Then another unexpected force entered the conversation first and loudest. Black commentators across the country came out swinging on television, radio, and stage, denouncing both the White House and Fury with absolute ferocity. Their speeches, rants, and furious performances lit up every channel and every crowd.
That was only the beginning.
In just a few short days, more than half the White House staff resigned. The Pentagon slid into paralysis. Overseas bases were left drifting without direction, and naval forces sat in confusion across distant oceans. In both the House and the Senate, lawmakers fled in droves rather than face the chaos.
Under those conditions, President O'Connor finally went on television to announce his resignation. But before he could finish, the signal was cut.
The country no longer wanted a resignation. It wanted blood.
Furious New Yorkers surged straight into Washington, D.C., surrounded the White House, and started shouting for him to be hanged. And in the middle of that chaos, another towering black figure finally stepped forward into public view.
Nick Fury had appeared at last.
....
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