Avengers: The Gathering

Chapter 1: A Deadly Delivery

It was a pretty typical day in New York city; busy roads, angry pedestrians, questionable street food sold by more or less legitimate vendors. Nothing really significant...

Except, perhaps, for the giant, red and white faceless monster, bursting out of the water next to Liberty Island.

The monster towered over Lady Liberty, at least twice as tall. Its eyeless, white skull of a head pivoted, as if it were looking for a target. Once it found the shore, it tore through the water and wasted no time wreaking havoc on the city.

It was well above the size of a skyscraper, which it took no time to decimate as soon as it came to one. Its four arms were fused at the elbow with a stray fifth arm on the left.

Instead of legs, the monster had a mess of tentacles that made up the lower half of its body.

It gave no thought to the cars, buildings and hundreds of pedestrians trying desperately to escape from beneath it, only to get crushed and smeared in a bloody mess into the pavement. It ravaged the city, snatching everything it blindly found and tossing it into its horrific, jagged jaws, swallowing them whole.

It made a path of pure destruction; buildings were crushed. Streets were vacant and flooded. Corpses lay everywhere. It rampaged until it ran, head first, into the Empire State building.

It grabbed the building, sizing up its new obstacle. It could tell, even with no eyes, that the building was at least over its head. Determined to not be stopped, the monster swung its arms, intending to punch right into the side...that's when something flew straight into the cavity that most closely resembled an ear on the monster's skull.

A moment of rapid beeping, then a loud boom as an explosion detonated inside the creature's head. It collapsed, crushing an entire city block with its sheer size, sending debris and people in every direction.

People, watching in horror from the street, looked up as an eclectic guitar cover of "Flight of the Valkyries" echoed from an unseen PA system. They cheered at the red and gold figure flying through the sky toward the fallen behemoth, flanked by a second, flying, caped figure and a third, red and blue, swinging member of the group.

Tony Stark flew once around the fallen creature, "Boys, the calamari is on me tonight," he told the others over his communicator. "That is, assuming we survive this. Kid, try to web it up while it's down."

"You got it, Mr. Stark!" Spider-Man eagerly replied. He let go of the web he was currently swinging on and landed on the back of the creature's massive, bone-like exoskeleton.

"Damn, this thing is gigantic." Tony whispered. He looked to the cosmic gem/AI fusion flying idle next to him. "Vision, you got anything?"

"It is not of this world," Vision said, stating the obvious. "It does not seem to match anything in this dimension."

"Oh, comforting," Stark sighed. "FRIDAY, try to get me a read on exactly what the hell this thing is. And, more importantly, how to disable and or kill it."

"Vision is right," FRIDAY replied, "even with data from the Mind Stone, nothing in this known universe even comes close to matching it. I can't even read its biological functions."

The monster began to stir. Parker was still fidgeting with his web shooter. "Let's see...was it this one?"

"Greenie, what's the hold up?" Tony nagged.

"Which one is the mummy web, again?" Spidey asked. He looked back down at his wrist, rotating through the holographic symbols the display projected.

"Which one is the..." Tony scoffed, "Kid, you're quite possibly, literally killing me right now!"

"Never mind, I found it!" Peter exclaimed. "Monster burrito, coming up!" He adjusted his web shooter, and back flipped off the monster's back. He aimed both shooters at its side and fired two wide sheets of webbing, creating a gauze-like wrapping around the waist as he swung under and back over.