Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron: The Junior Novel Read online

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  The Battle of New York changed everything.

  Not only did we learn in an undeniable way that we as humans are not alone in the universe, we learned that the universe is a much bigger—and much more dangerous—place than we ever expected.

  A hole opened in the sky over Manhattan, and the stuff nightmares are made of descended. Monstrous aliens, called Chitauri, zipped through the air on flying chariots and blasted crowds with their devastating lasers. Worse than this, the Chitauri brought with them flying giant whale-like Leviathans, seemingly impossible beasts that wreaked destruction in ways we never could have imagined. While the people of Earth witnessed the greatest evil they’d ever known, they also experienced their greatest hope.

  On that day, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes found themselves united against a common threat. The Avengers were born, brought together to fight foes that no single hero could withstand. Captain America, a man who had served his nation at a time when its freedom was threatened, once again risked his life to stop tyranny. The Hulk, a hunted and despised beast, protected those who hated him—defended a world that had never defended him. Thor, a prince from another dimension, battled for a planet and a people that were not his own. Hawkeye, at the time a loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, struck back against Thor’s evil brother, Loki, who had enslaved his mind. Black Widow, a mysterious spy, showed that her loyalties could never be doubted.

  And Iron Man—a playboy born of privilege who once made weapons—flew a nuclear missile through a doorway in space to an untold corner of the universe. Tony Stark, the man inside the armor, had enough money that he could have hidden himself in a bunker—could have turned his back on humanity and let it burn. But he did not. He risked everything, and barely emerged with his life.

  The Avengers saved us all. And they didn’t stop trying to save us.

  Stark defied an international terrorist organization run by the Mandarin, and as a result was hit by a missile strike on his own home. Missing, and for a while presumed dead, Iron Man reemerged to combat the now superpowered terrorists, destroy their plans, and save the president of the United States from assassination.

  When the next alien attack came to the planet, it came not to New York, but to Greenwich, England. A race known as the Dark Elves, led by Malekith, appeared above the city in a spaceship the size of a skyscraper. Malekith came not just to wipe out Earth, but also to use a substance known as the Aether to re-create the universe with his species at the center. But Thor battled Malekith and his soldiers long enough for his human friends to banish the Dark Elves forever.

  After all these assaults, it was shocking to be attacked from within. We always believed that S.H.I.E.L.D. existed to defend us. However, Captain America and Black Widow discovered that Hydra, a terrorist organization with roots in WWII, had long ago infiltrated the international security organization at its very foundation.

  When the evil federation attempted to use S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarriers to destroy thousands of potential adversaries, Captain America was there. He battled at great cost to save people around the world.

  S.H.I.E.L.D., as an organization, was shredded—untrusted by the world. While pockets of agents still worked in the shadows to help humankind, the once powerful operation was reduced to a few small, loyal strike forces.

  Without S.H.I.E.L.D., Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner, the man who could transform into the Hulk, began the long work of creating an advanced defense system that could save humanity from future attacks—a system that could potentially become the most important technology ever created.

  Stark, at his own personal expense, transformed New York’s Stark Industries building into the Avengers Tower. It was a symbol of hope for all who saw it—a symbol for the Avengers, in the very city where they had stopped an alien army.

  The tower served as a base of operations where the Avengers, either separately or as a team, could run missions. It is where Thor came when he discovered a dangerous secret.…

  The longtime Hydra leader, Baron Strucker, had acquired Loki’s extremely powerful scepter, and was out there, somewhere, laying plans.

  Based on this knowledge, the Avengers banded together and searched for Baron Strucker’s secret location by systematically attacking and dismantling known Hydra bases around the world.

  Base after base fell, but never one with Strucker inside.

  Until one night…

  Nighttime on the mountain was beautiful.

  Moonlight shone across deep snowdrifts. A majestic forest of ancient pines stood over an idyllic valley, and the landscape’s slope led to an ancient stone fortress. Painters would dream of capturing this scene on canvas—without the small security webcams mounted everywhere, of course.

  Sensors on camera 53-B detected a slight movement and activated work lights to power on across the grounds. The fortress’s gates opened simultaneously and released a flurry of tanks and troop transports into the woods! This was a Hydra fortress, one of the last ones standing, and the organization was going to defend itself to the very end.

  With the element of surprise clearly blown, Tony Stark, inside his Iron Man armor, called out a battle cry to the rest of his team…

  … and the Avengers assembled!

  Iron Man’s highly specialized lasers, called repulsors, blasted down from the sky, battering the lead Hydra tank. Captain America’s motorcycle screamed as it charged enemy troops who were jumping out of their transports into the woods. As Hydra soldiers continued to pour out of the fortress, a flying war hammer swooped out of the sky and bowled over several of them before returning to the hands of its owner.

  Enemies in powerful mecha-suit exoskeletons fired lethal blasts into the woods at Thor, but missed.

  One Hydra driver brought his jeep around, trying to get in range of the Avengers, when his door was suddenly ripped open and Black Widow kicked him aside. She jumped behind the wheel and took control of the vehicle.

  Bright blue laser fire began showering the Avengers from above. Some Hydra troops stationed in tree platforms were firing Chitauri weapons that the organization had rounded up during the aftermath of the Battle of New York. They were more powerful than any similar-sized weapons ever created on Earth, and their destruction was being unleashed on the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

  But not for long!

  One of the firing soldiers felt a THUNK as an arrow hit the ground at his feet. He sneered. The Avengers thought they could use arrows against alien blasters? But this wasn’t a simple arrow! It exploded, knocking the soldier out of the tree. Across the battlefield, Hawkeye smiled at the blast as he unleashed more shots. Just then, Thor flew down out of the sky, slamming into the other platform and smashing it to smithereens!

  The Avengers were making major headway against Hydra, but the enemy soldiers were confident. They had vastly superior numbers, and they had a row of tanks. There were only a handful of Avengers.

  But then the Hulk showed up.

  He landed like a bomb, pounding a crater into the ground. Hulk slipped in the snow, and accidentally smashed into a tank, obliterating it.

  Then he start
ed smashing on purpose. And that’s when the Hydra army began to lose their certainty.

  Iron Man, seeing Hulk tearing through the heart of the Hydra defenses, turned his attention to the fortress, flying straight at it. He had almost reached its central building when—BASH!—he slammed into an invisible barrier and crashed into the ground! Stark shouted in pain over the “comms,” the Avengers communications network.

  “Language, Stark,” scolded Cap at the sound of the profanity. “What’s the view from upstairs?”

  Jarvis, the artificial intelligence that assisted the Avengers with real-time tactical support, instantly analyzed the area around the fortress and focused on what caused Iron Man’s crash.

  “It appears that central building is protected by some kind of energy shield,” reported Jarvis over the comms.

  “Then Loki’s scepter is here,” said Thor as he landed in a circle of Hydra exoskeletons. The Hydra suits jumped on him, but he battled them back with ease. “Strucker couldn’t possibly mount that kind of barrier without the energy of the scepter. At long last…”

  “‘At long last’ is lasting a little long, boys,” said Widow as she jumped from the jeep she was driving and into another one filled with enemies. She fought all the troops in the vehicle by herself.

  Hawkeye, from a firing position in the trees, agreed with Widow. “We need to finish this up. Stark, heads up! You’ve got reinforcements running out of the exterior fortress staircases.”

  Iron Man looked up to see that Hawkeye was right. The new troops started blasting at him, so he returned fire with his repulsors.

  “Wait a second,” said Iron Man. “Is no one going to deal with the fact that Cap just warned me about my bad language?”

  “I know,” said Cap as he leapt from one of the Hydra jeeps, grabbing on to a tree branch to swing away as the vehicle crashed head-on into another tree. “It just slipped out.”

  Meanwhile, inside the fortress, Baron Strucker bounded into the command center. “Who gave the order to attack?” he demanded.

  “Herr Strucker… it’s the Avengers!” shouted one terrified soldier in response.

  Dr. List, Strucker’s right-hand man, explained. “They landed in the far woods. The perimeter guard spotted them and panicked.”

  “They have to be after the scepter,” said Strucker, turning back to the soldier. “Can we hold them?” he asked.

  The soldier, horrified, just blurted out, “They’re the Avengers!”

  Strucker frowned. His troops were clearly afraid of the Americans.

  “Deploy the rest of the tanks,” he commanded the scared soldier. “Concentrate fire on the weak ones. A hit may make them close ranks.”

  Strucker turned to List. “This threatens all we’ve accomplished here.”

  “Then let’s show them what we’ve accomplished,” said List. “Send out the twins.”

  Strucker shook his head. “It’s too soon.”

  “It’s what they signed up to do,” List reminded him.

  Strucker looked up at a security feed of the Avengers bettering his troops and considered what List said.

  “I have heavy artillery deploying from the flanks,” Jarvis notified the Avengers over comms.

  “Echelon formation,” noted Cap, recognizing the battlefield tactics Hydra was employing. “They’re trying to squeeze us, guys.”

  “It’s working,” noted Widow as she wrestled a Hydra trooper to the ground. Looking up, she was surprised to see a Hydra tank roll up on her position and take aim. There was no way it would miss her. This was it. This was the end for her.

  BAM! Just as the tank fired, the Hulk landed right in front of the barrel. He roared as the blast slammed into his back. He absorbed the tank fire, protecting Widow.

  Widow made eye contact with the green goliath and listened to him roar. “Yeah, how do you think I feel?” she asked in response.

  Behind Hulk, Thor landed on the tank and took it out with one hammer strike.

  “This is all a distraction. We need to get to the scepter,” shouted Thor. Then he said—quietly, as if talking to himself—“and end my brother’s legacy.”

  “Working on it,” said Iron Man as he continued to battle the reinforcements on the stairs.

  “We’re attracting attention from the civilians,” noted Jarvis.

  “All right,” said Iron Man, “send in the Iron Legion.”

  Sokovia, a small Eastern European country, had known hardship, poverty, famine, and war. The villagers down the mountain from the Hydra base had heard the explosions and seen the fires and were growing frantic. Was war returning?

  People came out from the safety of shelter and collected around the village square, some grabbing whatever weapons were at hand, fearing that they might have to once more defend themselves against invaders.

  Suddenly, as a mob formed, four drone Iron Man armors with no pilots inside landed on the ground. This was Stark’s Iron Legion, robotically controlled suits of armor assigned to tasks like guarding civilians.

  “Please stay in your homes,” announced the lead Iron Legionnaire. “We will do our best to ensure your safety during this engagement.”

  “The Avengers…” whispered one of the village elders, an edge of anger in his voice. So many had come to Sokovia over the years, trying to conquer it—trying to oppress its people. Sokovians didn’t trust anyone who came in force, not even these so-called Super Heroes.

  The angry villagers began to rally against the machines that tried to control them. Someone spray-painted graffiti on one, while someone else threw a bottle of acid on the lead Legionnaire. The chemical slowly ate away at the faceplate, disfiguring it. The Iron Legion stood still, absorbing the abuse that the villagers threw at them.

  Inside the fortress, Strucker addressed the remaining Hydra soldiers.

  “We will not yield,” he shouted. “The Americans send their circus freaks to best us, and we will send them back in boxes! No surrender!”

  Hearing this, the nervous troops perked up hearing this, taking courage in Strucker’s words. “No surrender!” they all shouted back at him, before tumbling out of the room to go join the fight.

  As soon as they were gone, Strucker turned back to Dr. List, and said, “I’m going to surrender. Delete everything. If we give them the scepter, they may not look very far into what we were doing with it.”

  “But the twins…” interrupted Dr. List.

  “I told you, they’re not ready to take on all of…”

  “No, I’m saying—the twins! They’re gone!”

  Strucker spun around in alarm. Sure enough, the observation cell where the twins were being held was empty.

  “Oh no,” whispered Strucker.

  Outside the fortress’s main building, Iron Man flew above a piece of equipment. “That’s the shield generator, sir,” Jarvis confirmed as he scanned the machine.

  “Does the shield extend underground?” asked Iron Man.

  “It’s worth testing, sir,” said Jarvis.

  This was the perfect opportunity to test Stark’s new “digger missiles.” He fired, and the projectiles began to burrow into the ground beneath the energy shield.

  Back in the forest, Hawkeye fired arrows at more troops. “They’re on the run,” he observed. But then he saw his arrows seemingly disappear before hitting their targets. “What…?” he asked in confusion.

  Then suddenly, out of thin air, a young man appeared in front of him. “You didn’t see that coming, did you?” asked the Eastern European. Hawkeye blinked, hesitating. Where had this guy come from?

  In the split-second that Hawkeye hesitated, he lost focus. He didn’t even see the Hydra soldier who zapped him with a Chitauri weapon.

  “Aughh!” Hawkeye howled in pain, crumpling to the ground as the kid zipped away. He moved so fast that he was like a blur in the air. Faster than a bullet train, faster than a jet. It was… impossible.

  “Clint!” shouted Black Widow, running to Hawkeye’s side and pulling out a med
kit. “Clint’s hit,” she told the others.

  Cap raced toward Hawkeye’s position, but the super-speeding man intercepted him, knocking him into a tree! Cap barely managed to land on his feet and immediately started scanning the area, looking for his attacker’s position. But the man was gone.

  “We have an Enhanced in the field,” Cap shouted over the comms to the other Avengers. “Enhanced” was the term the team used for anyone who had super powers. A new Enhanced meant big trouble. How much trouble? That could be anyone’s guess.

  “Getting yourself hit? What is this amateur-hour stuff, Barton?” Widow said to the wounded Hawkeye, teasing her teammate. She tried to lighten the mood as she dressed his very serious injury.

  Thor landed nearby, while Cap was still scanning for the new Enhanced.

  “He’s around here somewhere,” Cap told Thor. “He’s a blur of motion. With all the new players we’ve faced, I’ve never seen this. In fact, I still haven’t.”

  “I’ll get Barton to the jet,” said Thor. “You and Stark secure the scepter.”

  “Roger that,” confirmed Cap.

  Stark’s digger missiles proved very successful. They blasted out the force-shield generator, dropping the fortress’s last defense. Iron Man flew straight into the compound’s main building. As soon as he landed, he was surrounded by guards pointing rifles at him.

  “Let’s talk this over, boys,” he said, raising his arms as if in surrender. As soon as his arms were up, guns rose from the shoulders of his armor and fired nonlethal stun shots into all but one of the guards, knocking them out.

  “Good talk,” Iron Man said to the unconscious guards, then he turned to the remaining standing guard, who dropped his gun and looked at Iron Man fearfully. “Where are the data banks?” Iron Man asked him.

  The guard pointed the way.

  After Iron Man knocked out the energy field, Cap rushed into the fortress and made his way to the command center to confront Strucker. “Where’s Loki’s scepter?” Cap demanded.