And then there was the fact that Stark had gone ahead and dragged S.W.O.R.D.'s entire roster of superheroes into the mix…
The first wave of AIM combatants didn't even realize what was happening—right up until Stark's laser cannons turned them to vapor.
The moment the engagement began, AIM was on the back foot. Any resistance they managed to put up was entirely thanks to superior weapons and a brand of black-tech that the superheroes had never even heard of.
But none of that changed the outcome.
The superheroes swept through like an army of gods, grinding forward without pause. Within just two days they'd pushed deep into the heartland and encircled the AIM base where Modok himself was holed up.
But once they reached the core base, the superheroes couldn't simply steamroll their way through anymore.
AIM might not have been a combat organization, but this was their headquarters—and it was on an entirely different level from the branch bases the heroes had already bulldozed through. This place concentrated AIM's most elite warriors and showcased the full culmination of every scrap of black-tech they'd ever developed.
The superheroes had just gotten ready to charge in head-on the same way they had before when the enemy unleashed a barrage of lightning bombardment and long-range energy cannon fire that scattered them like ninepins. The assault crumbled before it even got going.
Thankfully, there were no casualties. Every superhero present had seen the big leagues—fought through countless alien invasions and monster outbreaks. AIM might be impressive, but this was as good as it got.
That last bone AIM had left, though—that was proving hard to crack.
They'd dug in around the base and deployed every unhinged piece of black-tech weaponry they had.
A stray round landed in the middle of the crowd and detonated into a vortex resembling a miniature black hole, grinding everything nearby to dust in an instant.
From a towering spire behind the base gates, a sickly orange wave pulsed downward, warping gravity within its radius and hoisting several superheroes into the air before slamming them back down hard enough to knock their teeth loose.
Before the heroes could even reach the entrance, they'd already paid a steep toll. And when they tried to return fire, they discovered that everything—bullets, their arsenal of mismatched weapons, energy blasts, all of it—was stopped dead by a pale blue energy barrier.
A torrent of firepower crashed against the transparent shield like a driving rainstorm, sending ripple after ripple cascading across its surface. But not a single crack appeared.
Energy shield technology was still top-tier on Earth. Only a handful of people had mastered anything resembling it, and each one used a fundamentally different approach.
Baron Strucker's base, for instance, had a similar barrier, derived from energy data harvested through research on the Tesseract.
Wakanda, too, possessed a force field massive enough to shield the royal palace and cover the capital—an application of vibranium-based energy technology.
Even Iron Man had something comparable, a system capable of wrapping his armor in a full-spectrum shield—a derivative of Stark's proprietary repulsor technology…
The point was, everyone had their own tricks, and shields generated through different principles required different methods to dismantle. Unless you brute-forced your way through—and that demanded an even higher threshold.
But this was where Stark came in.
He rapidly analyzed the principles behind AIM's energy shield, scanning frequencies to locate the energy generation core and calculating the weakest nodes in the barrier.
Within half a minute, he'd tuned his repulsor lasers to a frequency precisely opposite that of the energy field.
Iron Man and Red Hulk struck simultaneously. A concentrated energy blast landed a devastating hit that critically destabilized the shield, and Red Hulk seized the opening, surging forward to shatter the energy shell in one decisive blow.
The barrier that had stumped the majority of the superheroes crumbled in under a minute.
Nick Fury had predicted long ago that if another arms race ever erupted, the competition between nations would center on superhuman weaponry, because he believed that was where the world was headed.
The tide of superpowers was sweeping across the globe. Traditional military forces remained indispensable, but Fury was convinced that possessing superhuman powerhouses would be a critical element of future warfare.
And now, the members of AIM were feeling that truth firsthand.
All the power they'd stockpiled over so long—dismantled with ease by just two superheroes. That alone was proof enough of how vital a powerful superhuman breacher could be.
With the shield down, AIM had no choice but to face the superheroes head-on.
After the Battle of New York, the superheroes' reputation had become truly formidable. The phrase "held the line against an alien army" alone was enough to terrify ninety percent of the world's population.
AIM's terrorists were no exception. The moment word spread that the ones on the other side were the superheroes from the stories, the more timid soldiers could barely hold their guns steady, fingers trembling on the triggers.
And that was before considering that these superheroes all operated under a tiered system that Zod had refined—each rank assigned to handle threats of a corresponding level. Over time, this had given every hero a sharp, instinctive understanding of their own capabilities and role. So the ones deployed here were the heavy hitters.
Red Hulk, Green Hulk, Super Abomination, the Thing, and Juggernaut charged straight down the center line in a single file, shrugging off whatever got thrown at them as if they felt nothing, carving a bloody path through for the teammates behind them.
Human Torch Johnny, Iron Man, and Rhodey in his Decepticon armor took to the skies, providing close air support. Everything below them got reduced to rubble.
Against AIM, they truly were an unstoppable force of nature, sweeping all before them.
Layer after layer of AIM's outer defenses was flattened, the defensive perimeter shrinking ever tighter. Inside the base, big-headed Modok's expression had turned so dark it looked like it might rain, his mouth spitting a continuous stream of curses that kept every subordinate nearby staring at the floor, too terrified to look up.
The superheroes hit a wall at the third defensive line.
This stretch had been set up in a residential district, packed with housing blocks on all sides. Extremis soldiers used the buildings and terrain to launch ambushes, exploiting their searing heat and superhuman physiques to catch the heroes off guard.
But back in *Iron Man 3*, Tony had handled every last Extremis soldier on his own. With this many heavyweights present, there was even less reason for things to go south—it would just take a little more effort.
"Everyone, be careful!"
Tony raised a hand and fired a repulsor blast that took an Extremis soldier's head clean off, calling out as he swept overhead.
"Watch yourselves. They can generate body temperatures over three thousand degrees. They've got extreme regeneration and super-soldier-level agility. You need to go for the head or destroy the heart or something equally lethal to—"
Before he could even finish, the Hulk and the other thick-skinned muscle mountains had already crushed the Extremis soldiers flat without so much as a second thought.
"Right. Forget I said anything."
Tony shrugged. Even if one of them exploded right in their faces, it'd probably just leave the Hulks looking a little dusty.
The superheroes' progress was blisteringly efficient. Before long, they'd broken through the last defensive line and reached the heart of the base.
The resistance here was naturally the fiercest, but it changed nothing.
AIM's autonomous mechanical soldiers, their light-energy tank divisions—all their trump cards were dismantled by the superheroes one by one. Within half an hour, the heroes had officially secured the entire base.
/-\
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