The next morning, the early sunlight pierced through the lingering smoke and dust, casting a pale glow over the absolute ruins of West Midtown, Manhattan.
The entire district looked as if it had been viciously chewed up by a colossal beast.
The asphalt was covered in massive, spiderweb-like fault lines, and murky water continuously seeped up from deep craters where the underground mains had shattered.
Twisted, deformed wrecks of civilian cars, military Humvees, and heavy Stryker vehicles littered the streets.
Some had been superheated and melted into abstract lumps of slag, while others had been crushed completely flat by the sheer concussive force of the shockwaves.
A sheared-off fire hydrant continuously blasted a column of water dozens of feet into the air, catching the morning light to form a series of small, brilliant rainbows amidst the devastation.
Hundreds of rescue workers navigated the treacherous rubble, their bright orange high-visibility uniforms standing out sharply against the gray, ash-covered background.
“Over here!
I’ve got signs of life!” a firefighter shouted hoarsely, dropping to his knees in front of a collapsed apartment building with a thermal life-detector in his hands.
Heavy machinery immediately pivoted toward him, operators delicately maneuvering excavators to carefully lift away the shattered concrete.
Further down the avenue, National Guard soldiers were busy recovering scattered and damaged military hardware.
Next to a completely overturned armored vehicle, two soldiers grunted as they forcefully yanked out a deformed M240B machine gun, its heavy barrel bent into a bizarre, useless arc.
Another squad was meticulously scouring the street for the jagged bone spurs that had broken off the Abomination during the fight.
Using heavy tongs, they carefully deposited the razor-sharp fragments into lead-lined containment units, slapping bright yellow HIGH-RISK BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL warning stickers on the lids.
Not far away, the military had erected a multi-layered perimeter of police tape and barricades to aggressively push back the swarm of frantic journalists.
“Good morning, viewers.
This is Eddie Brock, reporting live for the Daily Bugle.” A reporter stood near the center of the ruined street, a still-smoldering office building looming in the background.
Holding his microphone tightly, he spoke into the camera.
“Last night’s catastrophic event has resulted in at least 347 confirmed injuries and 42 individuals reported missing.
The official death toll is still being calculated…”
However, his broadcast was completely drowned out by the deafening roar of helicopter rotors sweeping low overhead.
Three sleek, blacked-out UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters slowly descended into a temporarily cleared landing zone.
The side doors slid open with a heavy clack, and a squad of elite agents dressed in unmarked black tactical gear stepped out onto the asphalt.
The moment they approached the barricade, the National Guard soldiers on duty immediately stood at attention, saluting stiffly before pulling back the tape to let them through without a single question asked.
“Radiation indices are normal.
Bio-contamination is holding at Level B.”
At the very epicenter of the battlefield, a technician wearing specialized goggles carefully swept a scanner over a cluster of the Abomination’s remains.
Using heavy forceps, he deposited a scorched piece of tissue into a specialized lead-alloy case, labeling it GAMMA-LEVEL BIOLOGICAL SAMPLE.
“Good lord…
How the hell was a monstrosity like this even created?” an expert muttered, crouching nearby.
He strained with considerable effort just to lift the small lead container, tracing a finger over the warning label.
“The muscle tissue density is roughly one thousand, two hundred times that of an average human being.”
“Ugh, don’t even get me started,” another analyst complained, squatting near the edge of the massive crater left by the lightning strike.
He lightly touched the scorched earth with his fingertips, his face etched with sheer frustration.
“We’ve got a massive impact crater right here that was subjected to instantaneous temperatures exceeding 3000 degrees Celsius!
I have absolutely no idea how I’m supposed to write this incident report!”
Standing right in the center of that very crater, Clint Barton’s sharp, hawk-like eyes meticulously scanned the area.
“Doc, what do the energy readings say?” Clint pressed his earpiece.
It took a long moment before the exhausted voice of the lead technician crackled back over the comms.
“They’re completely off the charts, sir.
But the residual energy signatures don’t match any known technological weapon in our database.
It behaves more like…”
“Like what?”
“Like a form of pure, unadulterated energy.”
Clint frowned.
He crouched down, brushing his fingers lightly over the surface of the crater.
Deep within the blackened soil, a few faint wisps of purple energy flickered like living organisms before instantly dissolving into the air.
After a moment of silence, Clint asked, “Any luck tracking down the girl?”
“Absolutely nothing.
No residual DNA, no lingering thermal footprints.
Even when we ran the eyewitness footage through the global database, we got zero hits.
With all due respect, sir, it’s almost as if she…” The technician’s voice trailed off in sheer disbelief.
“Like she just stepped out of another world,” Clint finished quietly.
“Took the words right out of my mouth, sir,” the tech sighed.
At 9:00 AM, inside a temporary command tent, a holographic projector displayed a detailed 3D topographical map of the battlefield.
Clint handed his data pad off to an analyst and walked over to the secure communications terminal.
“Patch me through to Nick Fury.”
The screen flickered, and Nick Fury’s solitary, unreadable eye appeared on the monitor.
The bustling S.H.I.E.L.D.
headquarters command center served as his backdrop, dozens of agents working frantically at their stations.
“Report,” Fury ordered, his voice as cold and steady as always.
Clint brought up a stabilized video feed of Fischl descending from the sky and summoning the colossal pillar of lightning to execute the Abomination.
“Target is tentatively codenamed ‘Evernight.’ Female, estimated age between sixteen and eighteen.
Known abilities include, but are not limited to: hyper-velocity movement, high-yield energy manipulation, and suspected spatial teleportation.”
Clint zoomed in on a close-up of Fischl’s silhouette.
“Evernight utilizes a weapon resembling a standard recurve bow, but she fires projectiles made of pure energy.
We currently have no way of knowing if this is an innate biological ability, or a function of the weapon itself.”
Fury’s eye narrowed slightly.
“And her threat level?”
Clint brought up the telemetry data from the lightning crater.
“Level Eight, minimum.
In terms of raw destructive output, a single strike from her fluctuates anywhere between 50 kilograms to 200 tons of TNT equivalent.
But the real problem is…”
He swapped the video feed to the exact moment Fischl transformed into a streak of purple lightning and vanished with her raven.
Fury remained completely silent for a long moment.
Finally, he let out a quiet, resigned exhale.
“Maintain the search grid.
Elevate her priority status to Level A.
I’ll have the satellite division double their surveillance density.”
“Copy that.”
The transmission cut out.
Clint kept a grim face as he stepped out of the command tent.
In the distance, the frantic rescue operations were still in full swing.
Heavy cranes hoisted shattered steel beams into the air, and the wailing sirens of ambulances echoed endlessly down the block.
Clint looked up at the sky.
It had returned to a calm, clear, and serene blue, as if the apocalyptic purple thunderstorms of the previous night had never even existed.
Several blocks away, NYPD patrol officers were aggressively maintaining the perimeter.
“Stop right there!
NYPD!”
Four police officers were sprinting furiously after a young man carrying a heavily bulging backpack.
The looter nimbly vaulted over a collapsed brick wall, only to be immediately tackled to the ground by two detectives waiting on the other side.
“Get off me!
I found this stuff!
It was just lying on the ground, nobody was watching it!
You rich-man lapdogs can’t arrest me!
This is discrimination!
My life matters!
I’m LGBT—!” the looter screamed frantically as luxury watches and high-end jewelry spilled out of his unzipped backpack onto the pavement.
The detective didn’t humor him for a single second.
He swiftly and brutally slapped a pair of steel cuffs onto the guy’s wrists, scowling with utter exhaustion.
“Shut the hell up, you punk!
If my mag wasn’t empty, I’d have shot you and taken paid administrative leave!”
Near a parked squad car, over a dozen other suspected looters were lined up on the curb, all wearing handcuffs.
Some were crying out their innocence, some were hanging their heads in defeat, and one heavily tattooed thug was actively spitting at the boots of the passing officers.
“Haul ’em all back to the precinct!
Let the DA deal with the headache,” a portly police captain grumbled, wiping the thick sweat from his brow and waving them off in annoyance.
As the sun climbed higher into the sky, the massive cleanup operation gradually found its rhythm.
Bulldozers steadily pushed the rubble to the sidewalks, and heavy water trucks blasted the blood-stained streets clean.
Though heavily scarred and battered, the resilient pulse of the city was slowly beginning to beat once more.