War Machine watched in horror as friendly aircraft rained from the skies. Planes collided midair, igniting into fireballs, or suddenly spiraled out of control as if possessed, crashing into the city below. Without hesitation, he activated his thrusters and shot upward, determined to assist his falling comrades.
But once airborne, he found—nothing. No enemy fighters, no anti-aircraft fire, no visible threat at all. Only chaos. His comrades' aircraft were inexplicably crashing into one another, burning for no reason, falling like meteorites.
"Nick, what the hell is going on up here?" he shouted through the comms.
"Rhodey, get back on the ground immediately," Nick Fury's voice barked through the static. "The enemy's taken air superiority!"
"Air superiority?" War Machine repeated, confused. "But there's no one up here! I don't see a single enemy craft!"
He was still processing the words when his armor suddenly shuddered. A faint red glow began to creep along the edges of his suit—Scarlet Witch's psionic energy. His propulsion systems flickered erratically. He tried to accelerate forward, but the thrusters sputtered and twisted his direction. He pushed east, but the armor veered west. He tried to stabilize his flight, only for the mysterious crimson energy to forcefully suppress him midair.
War Machine's flight became chaotic—like a moth trapped in a hurricane. He slammed into several high-rises before finally crashing into the streets below in a shower of sparks. Fortunately, Tony Stark's armor was built to endure even the most punishing impacts; otherwise, he would have joined the wreckage burning across the skyline.
"Damn it, Nick—you were right!" he growled. "Everything above fifty meters is under some kind of psychic interference. I can't even control my suit up there!"
The moment the U.S. military lost air dominance, the entire battlefield began to unravel. As soldiers scrambled to avoid falling debris from crashing aircraft, Mist's heavy fog rolled in, blanketing the streets in an impenetrable haze. Visibility dropped to barely two meters. The world became a suffocating blur of gray and silence.
Panic rippled through the ranks.
"Hold your positions! It's just fog—it's harmless!" Black Widow shouted, trying to steady the troops. But the tone of her voice betrayed her own unease. "Stay alert! Watch the buildings—there could be an ambush!"
The American soldiers split into smaller squads, activating tactical flashlights and beginning systematic sweeps of nearby apartment blocks. Despite their fear, training kicked in. They moved with practiced precision, communicating through hand signals and short bursts of radio chatter.
"Building 1—floors 1 through 7 clear!"
"Building 3—secure!"
"Building 5—enemy contact! We've got movement!"
Inside Building 5, a squad stumbled upon a zombie unlike any they'd ever encountered. Its body was covered in grotesque bone growths that jutted through its flesh like blades. Each joint and limb bristled with razor-sharp spikes, turning it into a walking weapon.
The creature saw them and roared, raising its arms. From its palms, two long bone blades shot forth like swords. Then, with inhuman speed, it charged.
Its movement blurred. It was so fast that the soldiers barely had time to react.
"Fire!" the squad leader shouted, swinging up his Remington combat shotgun. The deafening blast filled the corridor, scattering smoke and sparks as hundreds of pellets slammed into the creature's chest. The impact hurled it backward, slamming it into a wall with a sickening crack.
But it wasn't dead. The zombie twitched, struggling to rise. The squad unleashed a hail of bullets, shredding its limbs and skull until its body finally went still.
Moments later, War Machine crashed through a nearby window, still smoldering from his earlier fall. "Report!" he demanded.
"Sir!" the squad leader pointed to the corpse. "That thing—whatever it is—it's not like the others. It's faster, tougher, and covered in spikes! One of my men nearly got skewered!"
The lieutenant wasn't exaggerating. Across all three invasion routes, soldiers were encountering the same new breed of undead—bone-armored, super-fast mutants that fought with terrifying ferocity. The weak, sluggish zombies from before were gone, replaced by killers that tore through human ranks like beasts unleashed.
And then came something even worse.
At the front of the armored column, one of the M1 Abrams tank operators noticed movement—massive shadows shifting within the fog. The ground trembled beneath their treads. He fired a flare into the mist.
What the soldiers saw next froze their blood.
A Thunderbeast emerged.
It was larger than a mammoth, its body covered in a dark, chitinous exoskeleton. Each step made the ground quake. Its forelimbs were thick as tree trunks, and from its head protruded two enormous, scissor-like claws, sharp enough to shear through steel.
The tank commander reacted instantly. "Fire!"
The M1's 105mm AP shell launched with a roar, striking the Thunderbeast's head squarely. But instead of piercing its armor, the round flattened and exploded harmlessly against its crown. The explosion left only a superficial scorch mark.
The monster bellowed—an ear-splitting roar of rage—and charged.
Its massive claws clamped down on the tank, crushing the reactive armor plating like paper. The sixty-ton war machine was lifted clean off the ground as if it weighed nothing. The Thunderbeast hurled it aside, plowing forward through the wreckage, tearing open the defensive line like it was made of tin.
Panic spread instantly. The front ranks broke formation as the flaming wreck of the M1 landed amid them. The flamethrower troopers—the backbone of the anti-zombie strategy—barely managed to aim before being stomped into the ground by the creature's colossal feet.
And from the Thunderbeast's back—hundreds of zombies leapt down, shrieking. They tore into the scattered soldiers, slashing with bone claws and driving spikes into armor joints, moving at terrifying speed.
In close quarters, the U.S. military's firepower advantage evaporated. Flamethrowers and shotguns became liabilities—they risked hitting friendly units. The standard M16 rifles lacked stopping power; even bursts to the chest barely slowed the mutants down.
Then, from beneath their feet, new horrors appeared. Using the Earthshaker's underground channels, waves of zombies erupted from buildings and sewers the soldiers had already cleared.
What had been a clean, organized advance turned into chaos—a nightmare of smoke, screams, and blood.
The undead no longer crept—they charged.
And the great human alliance, moments ago confident in its invincibility, was about to learn the true meaning of terror.