Three-thirty in the afternoon. Half an hour to go.
The air in the bunker's war room sat thick enough to chew.
Veyric leaned forward, both hands braced on the edge of the tactical table. The holographic projector cast a three-dimensional map of Hell's Kitchen in pale blue light, sharpening every line of his face.
"The core tactic today is divide and conquer."
He looked up, scanning the faces of his fully armed team.
"Peter, Colossus. You two have the best mobility and the most punishment absorption on this squad. You're the front-line vanguard."
Peter threw him a sloppy salute that would've made any drill sergeant weep. Beside him, Colossus rumbled an acknowledgment in that deep barrel-chest voice.
"But you're not there to slug it out." Veyric circled the main street entrance on the projected map. "Feint. Fight and fall back. Zombies can't resist the scent of living flesh, so use that. Lure them out of the buildings, get them isolated."
"The moment one breaks away from the pack, I close the gap and cure them. One by one, we flip the numbers in our favor."
He turned toward the two figures standing in the shadows.
"Natasha, Eric. The second the front line engages, you slip around the back."
Blade drew a slow breath and rolled his shoulders. A chain of sharp pops crackled from his joints.
"Your job is to find out what they're keeping back there. Whatever 'food supply' these things are hoarding, locate it. Then get those people out."
Veyric tapped the deep interior of the holographic map twice, hard. "Once the hostages are clear, we hit them from both sides. That's the killing blow."
He rattled off assignments for Falcon and Hawkeye next: aerial assault and covert fire support.
"That's the plan. Questions?"
Silence. Every person in the room kept their eyes on their own gear, checking magazines and tightening straps. The quiet said everything.
Veyric nodded.
"Now move out.."
Everyone shouldered their gear and filed toward the underground garage. The corridor filled with staggered footsteps and the heavy rhythm of controlled breathing.
Veyric brought up the rear, watching the figures ahead of him. Superheroes he'd only ever seen on a movie screen, walking into a fight because he told them to. Every tactical call in that room had been accepted without a single objection.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
Come on, Veyric. You used to watch the Avengers brawl on screen and think it was the coolest thing in the world. Now you're the one calling the plays. Hold it together.
The silent pep talk barely dented the pressure crushing down on him.
Black slime seeped from the back of his hand, nudging his wrist like a cat.
"Veyric, your heartbeat's doing something weird. If things go south, worst case, I grab you and we run."
"Shut it. Save your strength. You're going to be eating punches from the Defenders later." He bit the words out, sucked in one long breath, and let his eyes go cold again.
The underground garage.
Two SUVs idled with engines warm, headlights cutting harsh white through the dim space. Dark brown bloodstains from the last mission still clung to the doors and bumpers, never fully scrubbed away.
Natasha had her tactical pack slung over one shoulder and was reaching for the door handle when her stride hitched beside him. "Try not to be nervous, Captain."
Veyric holstered his modified Glock into the thigh rig and glanced at her profile. "Same goes for you. Stay sharp on the infiltration. Anything you can't handle, radio for backup."
Her hand paused on the door for half a second.
A top-tier operative who'd carved her way out of the Red Room. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ace. And here was Veyric, reminding her to be careful like she was some green recruit on her first op. The feeling was... novel.
Her gaze flicked across him, quick and unreadable. She said nothing, swung into the driver's seat, and pulled the door shut.
Both armored SUVs growled to life and ground over the rubble, plunging deeper into the city.
Four o'clock. The outer streets of Hell's Kitchen.
The air reeked of rust and rotting meat, thick enough to taste. The two SUVs pulled behind a wall of debris, and the team spilled out, fanning into their assigned positions.
Veyric crouched behind the remains of a half-collapsed awning, angled to cover Hawkeye's position in the shadows. High above, Falcon waited on a rooftop, wings folded.
Eyes locked on the dead-silent streets ahead, Veyric pressed the transmit button on his earpiece.
"All units, execute."
Seconds later, Peter and Colossus strolled onto Hell's Kitchen's main street, bold as daylight, one after the other.
The warmth of living bodies hit the zombies' senses like a floodlight in pitch darkness. Three seconds was all it took.
BOOM.
A load-bearing wall on a red-brick apartment building exploded outward without warning. Two massive figures launched through the cloud of dust and debris like rounds from a cannon, hurtling straight at the pair in the street.
Luke Cage and Jessica Jones.
Former protectors of these streets, now caked in blackened, crusted blood. Luke's skin had gone a sickly grey-purple, and his charge carried the momentum of a derailed dump truck.
"Whoa! Hell's Kitchen rolls out the welcome wagon like this? I didn't even get to knock!" Peter yelped, legs coiling, and launched himself skyward like he'd been shot from a spring.
"Living... fresh meat, coming right to our door..." Jessica's voice scraped out, thick with something ravenous and hollow.
She snarled, missed her lunge, and drove both fists into the asphalt. The road cratered on impact, cracks spidering outward, chunks of stone spraying in every direction.
On the other side, Colossus had nowhere to dodge. A deep growl tore from his throat as he crossed both arms over his chest.
The collision was titanic. Luke's broad shoulder slammed into Colossus's guard, and the impact rang out like two tanks meeting head-on, a shriek of metal on metal that echoed off every building. Even Colossus, all that mass, skidded backward three or four meters.
Before he could draw breath, Jessica flanked him. A full-force roundhouse kick whipped toward his knee.
Peter spotted it from above and raised his wrist. "Hey, big guy, you need a hand!"
A line of webbing shot out.
From the darkness, a blood-red billy club screamed through the air with a piercing whistle.
Crack. It sliced clean through the web mid-flight, then ricocheted off a lamppost without losing speed.
Then, at the far end of the main street, a blinding golden light flared in the shadows.
Zombie Iron Fist's legs erupted with horrifying force, shattering the stone beneath his feet as he rocketed upward. His right fist blazed with violent, swirling energy, and he brought it down like a wrecking ball aimed squarely at Peter's escape route.
"Daredevil and the glowing fist guy! They came as a package deal!" Peter contorted mid-air, firing a desperate web-line at a wall to wrench himself sideways. The blazing punch missed by inches. He hit the comms channel screaming. "Requesting air support! These guys are way tougher than we planned for!"
"Copy."
Falcon's voice came from high above. Metal wings folded tight, and he plummeted in a steep dive.
A split second before he reached ground level, a car door ripped free by inhuman strength came spinning through the air, hurled directly into his flight path.
Misty Knight stepped out of the rubble, bionic arm raised, dead eyes tracking the shape in the sky.
"Well, that's a problem."
"Nobody go toe-to-toe with them!" Veyric's voice cut through the earpieces, steady and controlled. "Stick to the plan. Fight and fall back. Pull them outward!"
On his order, Peter, Colossus, and Falcon shifted tactics immediately. Webbing and aerial fire kept the zombies harassed while all three edged toward the perimeter, baiting the horde out of the building cluster.
Then something strange happened.
Luke and Jessica chased maybe fifteen meters before their feet locked to the ground.
Living flesh, warm and close, practically within arm's reach. Both zombies snarled with frenzied, bloodthirsty hunger, throats vibrating with need. But their bodies refused to follow, as if yanked back by invisible chains.
Behind them, Iron Fist, Daredevil, and Misty Knight hadn't moved a single step past the block's entrance.
Five zombie heroes, staggered in a loose formation, had planted themselves into an iron-tight defensive line.
They didn't chase. They didn't scatter. They held their ground with eerie, mechanical discipline, guarding the gates of Hell's Kitchen like sentinels.