The videos went out before anyone with authority to stop them had finished understanding what was happening.
David had received Nolan's instruction and left the network open. No account suspensions, no platform-level suppression, no blackout protocol. The footage that tens of thousands of civilian phones and cameras had captured during the battle uploaded without interference, spread across every major platform, and replicated faster than any deletion effort could track. Official channels in the Americas made initial attempts: flagged accounts, removed videos, pushed counter-narratives through aligned media. Jarvis and David responded to each effort in the time it took to notice it, and the official channels stopped trying within the hour.
The video that accumulated the most views in the first six hours had been titled by its uploader, in the straightforward manner of someone who had watched what they filmed and named it accordingly: "Astartes Brutally Kill the Alien." It was clear, well-framed, and contained approximately four minutes of Terminator-plated figures advancing through a compressed Chitauri line without slowing. Every mainstream outlet that ran it added their own framing, but the footage did not require framing. It was self-explanatory.
David noted that native humans could not meaningfully threaten the Guardians of Terra regardless of this footage's existence, but that external threats created favorable conditions for reducing internal friction, and that the Inquisition and the Guardians of Terra emerging from this engagement on the moral high ground was not a negligible outcome. The accounting was straightforward.
Post-battle New York. The Sanctum Sanctorum.
The long wooden table in the main hall held more food than the assembled group would finish, and the assembled group was making a serious attempt. Tony had his faceplate up and was talking at Rogers between bites. Thor had bypassed the food entirely in favor of something from the Sanctum's stores that he was working through in volume. Nolan ate without ceremony, steadily, the kind of eating that was about restoration rather than enjoyment. Around them, the two dozen Inquisition members who had come through the battle sat at the lower end of the table in varying states of exhaustion and relief, consuming everything within reach.
When the rate of consumption slowed to the point where it became eating rather than necessity, Nolan set down what was in his hand and snapped his fingers once.
The sound was small. The room's attention moved to him immediately.
"First: congratulations to everyone in this room on being alive. What you did today put more people back in their homes than would otherwise have made it." He let that land, then continued in the same register. "We also lost people on this battlefield. Those losses will be formally acknowledged. Their service to humanity's future will not be forgotten. May the Emperor bless their souls."
He folded his hands on the table.
"The Inquisition has now established its public presence. Your individual contributions today will be recorded and compensated, in resources or other terms, at a rate that reflects the work. You have my word and the Inquisition's commitment on that."
He looked at the room.
"Everyone except Tony, Thor, and Rogers: the Sanctum's sorcerer will return you to the Inquisition's base. You can go."
The Inquisition members filed out in ones and twos, some of them looking back once, most of them simply moving toward the door with the walk of people who wanted to stop being vertical for an extended period.
When the hall held only the four of them, Nolan spoke again.
"Barring unforeseen circumstances, the Chitauri fleet is still in transit toward Earth. What we ended today was the forward operation, not the campaign. If we intend to make this mean something, if we want to demonstrate to the alien powers in this universe that Earth is not a viable target, we need to carry the fight to them. On their ground, not ours."
He paused.
"There is also a more immediate problem. Jessica and Wanda are unaccounted for. We have searched every section of the battlefield and found nothing: no bodies, no armor fragments, no evidence of death. Loki had a contingency. My best assessment is that he had them taken aboard the Chitauri fleet before the battle here concluded."
The table was quiet for a moment.
Tony hit the surface with one steel knuckle. Not hard. The sound of someone filing something away.
"The planetary defense question is separate from the immediate one, but it's not optional." He looked around the table. "I have a framework in my head. We can discuss the specifics later. The priority right now is the hostages and the fleet." He turned to Nolan directly. "Your sorcerers. The portal capability. Is it viable for a raid on a moving fleet?"
Nolan shook his head.
"The portals require the caster to have precise knowledge of the destination: coordinates, visual familiarity, or prior physical presence. A Chitauri fleet in transit through the void has none of those properties from our side. The portal method cannot be completely ruled out, but the success rate is low enough that I would not build a rescue plan around it."
Rogers had been quiet since the table cleared. He leaned forward now.
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s containment facility holds several intact alien spacecraft. Unknown origin, structurally sound. Could we use them? Load a strike team, approach under their sensor profile, get people aboard the fleet from close range?"
Nolan considered it.
"The logic is sound, but the scale doesn't match what we're dealing with. Those are small craft. Even at full capacity they carry only a handful of people, and the Chitauri fleet is not a single ship. The other issue is that the hostages' location within the fleet is unknown, and a small insertion team with unknown positions cannot guarantee anything." He shook his head. "Too much risk concentrated in the wrong places."
He set both palms flat on the table.
"I have two options worth considering. The first involves the Space Stone. It came into our possession today along with the Mind Stone, and I have an Infinity Gauntlet capable of interfacing with the Infinity Stones. What I cannot confirm is whether my current physical development is sufficient to actually direct the Space Stone's function rather than simply possess it. It is an option that could solve the access problem entirely if it works. The uncertainty is significant."
He continued before anyone could respond.
"The second option is more concrete. My base has a Cobra-class destroyer. One and a half kilometers in length, fully operational in terms of armament, capable of independent void travel. Its firepower alone should be sufficient to defeat the Chitauri fleet in direct engagement, and it gives us the platform to conduct boarding operations on our own terms."
He stopped there for a moment.
"The problem is the engine systems. The propulsion technology in that ship operates on principles completely unlike anything Earth has produced. Reditus has been studying it, but the research is not complete, and a long-range void transit without full understanding of the drive systems is not a risk I am willing to accept with a combat team aboard. If something fails in the void, there is no recovery. The team is simply gone."
He looked at all three of them.
"You do not want to be completely lost in the depths of the universe. Believe me on that."
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