The sky above Manhattan was no longer burning.
It should have been.
Nick Fury stood on the Helicarrier bridge, arms crossed, his one eye fixed on a live satellite feed of the crater where the nuke should have landed.
But hadn't.
Instead, the clouds glowed faintly with residual light, a slow dispersion of energy that marked not annihilation—but intervention.
"You're telling me," Fury said slowly, "that the missile was intercepted."
"Yes, sir," Hill replied. "But not by Stark. We lost comms with him halfway through the ascent. He never reached it."
Fury turned toward her. "Then who did?"
Hill hesitated. "That's the thing. We don't know."
Early Recon: The Eye in the Sky
"Play it again," Fury ordered.
The grainy footage ran on a large display: a satellite's-eye view of a section of New York now ominously quiet.
First, the swarm—Chitauri forces overwhelming the block. Then… the anomaly.
A cloaked figure.
Black armor. Cape trailing in the wind. Crimson blade igniting with hellish light.
He moved like a ghost. No wasted motion. One swing, two kills. A gesture, and three enemies were crushed into the side of a truck. Another wave of his hand, and a skimmer exploded in the air.
But that wasn't what made Fury's throat tighten.
It was the energy signature.
The gravity of him.
As the battle continued, more and more Chitauri gravitated toward him, pulled by some unseen force—as if the battle itself was realigning around this one being.
"Satellite picked up localized energy spikes. Significant," a tech reported. "Street-level sensors were fried, and the grid went out in a five-block radius when he acted."
Fury's brow creased. "He's using something. A weapon?"
"Maybe. Or maybe he is the weapon."
Cross-Referencing the Impossible
Dozens of agents scoured data feeds. Traffic cams. Cell phone videos. Emergency responder footage. Drones. Each showing the same thing:
This figure appearing out of nowhere.
An entire invasion force funneled toward him.
And being annihilated.
"Nothing's come through the portal besides Chitauri units and vessels," Hill said. "Whatever this is… Loki didn't send him on purpose."
Fury rubbed his temple. "Then who did?"
No one had an answer.
Debrief: Internal Discussion
In the makeshift command room aboard the Helicarrier, Fury gathered his inner circle.
Hill. Sitwell. Commander Raine. Two Level 7 analysts and a physicist borrowed from the Tesseract project.
A holographic map of New York pulsed in red and gold.
"So far," Raine said, "we've got multiple eyewitnesses. Some civilians are calling him a black knight. Others say he's a machine. One guy insists he saw him teleport the missile into the sky."
"He didn't teleport it," Hill corrected. "He grabbed it. From the ground. It changed course mid-flight and was redirected."
"Redirected where?"
"Into the portal. Into their space."
Fury leaned forward, palms planted on the table. "Let's assume for a moment that what we're seeing is accurate. We're dealing with an entity—humanoid—who demonstrates command over unknown forms of energy, psychokinesis, telekinetic projection, weaponized plasma-based melee arms…"
Raine exhaled. "And casually stopped a nuke."
"That too."
The room fell silent.
One of the analysts, Kwan, spoke up quietly. "Sir… what if he's not from here?"
Fury didn't look at him. "He's not."
"You're certain?"
"I watched the sky ripple when he arrived."
Kwan swallowed. "Then we're dealing with an extra-dimensional."
The Name
Later that evening, the silence broke.
Agent Simmons—assigned to metadata collation—burst into the command room, tablet clutched in her hands. "Director Fury—sir—you need to see this."
He turned, reading the look in her eyes.
Something wasn't right.
She brought up a paused image: one frame, enhanced from street-level security footage. The figure stood among flame and wreckage, mask catching the firelight. An angular black helmet. Rigid armor. Long black cloak. A crimson blade crackling with unnatural energy.
Fury stared at it. Something about the silhouette…
"It triggered a cross-reference with cultural imprint data," Simmons said breathlessly. "Movies. Television. Pop culture."
"Pop culture?"
"Yes, sir. This individual—he matches a fictional character."
Fury raised an eyebrow. "You're telling me this thing already exists in our media?"
Simmons nodded slowly. "His name is… Darth Vader."
The words felt wrong in the room. Heavy.
"From Star Wars," she added. "A film series. Created in the seventies. But there's more…"
She tapped a few keys, bringing up a data profile—a fictional one.
A Sith Lord. Once a Jedi. Master of the Force. Wielder of telekinetic, precognitive, and destructive power beyond natural limits. Armor-bound after a duel with his master. Enforcer of an empire. Feared across the galaxy. A butcher. A conqueror.
Fury frowned. "So, what—someone cosplaying with superpowers?"
"I don't think so," Simmons whispered. "The resemblance is exact. Down to the armor ridges. The breathing. Even the voice."
The room was deathly quiet.
Hill finally asked the question no one wanted to.
"If that's really him… if he's real… then what else from those stories is real?"
Fury stared at the still image of the black figure. It looked back at him with lifeless, soulless eyes.
"No. That's not a man in a suit," he said softly. "That's not a fake."
"Then what is he?" Kwan asked.
Fury's voice was a low growl.
"A warning."