How Dare You Invade My Territory! You Are Seeking Your Own Demise!

Agent Coulson had slept until the afternoon for the first time in ages. When he groggily emerged from his bedroom, it was almost time for Annie to get out of school. Normally at this hour, either he or Melinda would have gone to pick Annie up. He couldn't understand why Melinda was still here.

"What's wrong, Melinda? Don't you need to pick up Annie from school?"

After greeting her, Coulson headed to the kitchen to find something to eat. Lunch had long passed, but dinner was still a ways off—he wouldn't make it without a bite.

"Annie's class has an extracurricular activity this afternoon, so school lets out a little later. There's no rush," Melinda said, staring at Coulson with a blank expression. "As for you, Coulson, did you sleep well? Do you know what time it is? You're just getting up now?"

"You try flying around all night, causing chaos, and then spending over an hour helping little Annie with her homework—you'd sleep until afternoon too! Honestly, I was exhausted last night. I barely managed to fall asleep just before dawn!" Coulson grabbed a loaf of bread from the fridge and a bottle of ketchup. His lunch was sorted.

"What's up, Melinda? Something else happen?" He sliced two pieces of bread, spread ketchup on them, and ate while studying her curiously. He could tell something was off. Lately, bad news had been piling up, so he was used to it.

"There are two pieces of bad news. Want to hear them?" Melinda's face remained expressionless.

"Oh? Let's hear it. Don't tell me that trickster god Loki escaped again?" At the mention of bad news, Coulson frowned. There had been plenty lately. Last night, Thor had snatched Loki away, then fought a huge battle with Iron Man and Captain America, leveling a small forest in the process.

But in the end, after negotiations, Thor had obediently escorted Loki back to S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters and locked him in a special prison! If Melinda had bad news now, it couldn't be that Loki had escaped again, could it? With a bunch of Avengers watching him in a special prison, he still got out? Was he really that good? And Coulson remembered that the Hulk, Banner, was at headquarters too. All those people couldn't keep an eye on one Loki?

"You guessed it! Loki did escape! And that's not all—they nearly destroyed headquarters. That Helicarrier almost crashed! Most of its systems are down now. Plus, Thor from the Avengers is missing, and the Hulk went on a rampage at headquarters before getting thrown off the carrier and landing who knows where..." Melinda sighed as she spoke.

She felt like everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen for Loki's trick! Maybe his appearance in Germany last night, causing all that chaos, was deliberately meant to lure them into capturing him! Now look at the mess he'd made of the headquarters carrier—it seemed his goal had been achieved. If he had some scheme in mind, S.H.I.E.L.D. probably didn't have the resources to deal with him anymore. The only good news, perhaps, was that Hawkeye had been captured.

"So you're just going to sit here and do nothing?" Coulson was a bit stunned by such explosive news.

"What can I do? Drive your car to headquarters for backup?" Melinda laughed bitterly, firing back.

"Oh, right! Without a fighter jet, we can't get to headquarters. My Lola can't fly that high or that far!" Coulson thought it over. There really wasn't much they could do.

In fact, Coulson was already incredibly lucky. Because of Annie, he and Melinda had been tasked with watching over the little girl, keeping them far from the chaos at headquarters! In the original timeline, he would have already been dead, his heart pierced by Loki.

"So, should we check in with headquarters and see if they need our help?"

"Give it a rest. Don't bother the Director! Just finish eating, get ready, and go pick up Annie." Melinda rolled her eyes at Coulson.

Headquarters was probably a complete mess right now. The mighty S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters nearly got wiped out! The carrier was badly damaged, and plenty of people were dead. Checking in now would just be asking for trouble. She was sure Black Charcoal Head, the Director, was fuming. Who would be stupid enough to poke that bear?

"OK! I'll go soon!"

Just as Coulson was about to take a couple more bites and head out, a distant, piercing air raid siren suddenly blared. He instinctively exchanged a glance with Melinda, and the two of them rushed to the intelligence equipment in the house. They had to confirm immediately what was happening! Who would sound the city's air raid siren at a time like this? If it wasn't a drill, something huge was about to go down!

Listening to the air raid siren echoing across the entire city, the teachers and security guards who had gathered all the students and were preparing to board the buses back to school were at a loss. They hadn't received any notice of an air raid drill today! Why was the siren going off? A false alarm? Or some drunk fool mashing buttons?

As Teacher Maine was puzzling over this while continuing to round up the students for the bus, a frantic musical ringtone started coming from Annie's backpack! It was the S.H.I.E.L.D. emergency communicator that Coulson and Melinda had given Annie. It had never been used since being placed in her backpack, but today, for some reason, it was ringing.

"Huh? Uncle Coulson? Aunt Melinda? What's up?"

Under the gaze of her teacher and classmates, Annie had no choice but to pull a small black block with a dazzling shell and the S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem from her backpack. It was shaped like a phone. After fumbling for a moment and pressing a button, the communicator projected a light screen showing anxious 3D holograms of Coulson and Melinda.

"Hey, Annie? We just got the latest news. Loki has opened a space portal on top of Stark Tower. The Chitauri army has started attacking New York. Be careful! And if you can help, that would be great!" A cacophony of roaring explosions came through the communicator. It sounded like Coulson was already in a fight and barely had time to warn her.

"Wow! I can see them already..." Annie hung up and looked up to see a swarm of flying vehicles speeding toward their park!

The vehicles looked like oversized jet skis, except they flew in the air and were even bigger! Each carried three or four Chitauri—one at the front controlling the vehicle, while the other two or three fired laser energy weapons at the ground. Their attacks hit the earth with a series of explosions, sending the crowd in the park into a panicked frenzy as they scattered in all directions.

"Ah~! Help! HELP! ME!"

"Ahhh!!"

A group of bikini-clad girls who had been sunbathing on the lawn barely had time to get up and run before they were hit by a barrage of laser shots. After the explosions, severed limbs and blood splattered everywhere, staining a patch of grass red...

And it didn't stop there! More flying vehicles swarmed in, their wild energy weapons setting trees and bushes in the park ablaze. Smoke and explosions, fire and blood, mixed with the frantic crowd—in an instant, they turned a peaceful leisure park into a scene of apocalypse!

Seeing how brutal these aliens were, the crowd grew even more chaotic!

People scrambled and crawled into any building or shelter they could find. A fat adult man even stuck his head into a concrete pipe, leaving his comically round, fat butt sticking out, unable to squeeze in any further!

The elementary school students around Annie were equally stunned, frozen in place, forgetting even to run! When a severed hand—belonging to some unknown woman—was blown into the open space in front of the student line, little Angelina was the first to collapse to the ground in terror, bursting into tears. Her crying set off the other students, who also began wailing at the top of their lungs.

"Oh! God! My God! What, what is happening?" Hearing the students start crying, Teacher Maine was the first to snap out of it. She knew she had to do something. She had her students to protect!

"Children, hurry! Stop crying! Be brave! Stand up and follow me to that building over there to take cover! Quick!"

She tried her best to pull the children along, but there were too many terrified students for one person to handle. If anything, her panicked tugging only made them cry louder...

"Oh! No!"

A Chitauri flying vehicle spotted the chaotic cluster of elementary students on the lawn. It turned and flew straight toward them, firing two blue energy lasers from a distance. Maine could only let out a mournful cry in her heart as she instinctively closed her eyes, shielding her students with her not-so-broad back...

"Hmph!"

Just as Maine was certain she was about to die, she seemed to hear Annie snort! After a moment of waiting for death with her eyes closed, she realized they hadn't been hit at all. She opened her eyes and saw something astonishing!

Annie was holding out one small hand, palm up toward the sky, and a huge, fiery red hemispherical shield was protecting Teacher Maine and the other students. More blue lasers continued to strike the shield, but they only caused faint ripples on its surface without penetrating.

"Hmph! I won't forgive you!" Annie's usually cheerful face had gone completely cold. She was angry now, really angry! And the consequences would be severe! Those must be bad guys, really, really bad guys, and she had to burn them all right now!

She began to float, slowly drifting outside the shield. Watching the Chitauri flying vehicles still circling and roaring overhead, Annie raised her right hand again. Intense magical energy began to surge and gather, as if countless forces were converging in her hand. The next moment, a massive fireball formed above her small hand, its searing heat boiling the surrounding air and distorting the light.

"Flame! Fissure Fire! Go!"

Annie furrowed her brows and snorted at the Chitauri still attacking from the sky. The giant fireball in her hand exploded, splitting into countless basketball-sized fireballs! They roared through the air at high speed, as if guided by some navigation, each one chasing down a Chitauri flying vehicle. Upon impact, they detonated violently... Flames engulfed them entirely!

With a series of explosions and the dying screams of the Chitauri, not a single one of the hundred or so flying vehicles in the airspace near the lawn survived! The riders and machines were all blasted into burning fragments, raining down to the ground like a storm of fire.

This was what Teacher Maine saw when she opened her eyes, her arms still spread protectively over her students. Even years later, whenever she thought about it, it still felt unbelievable! Before this moment, she would never have imagined that little Annie—the most mischievous, troublesome, and troublemaking kid in her class—would be the one to save them all!

"My God! Annie, what's wrong?!" Maine stared at the transparent shield still protecting them, and at Annie floating in the sky who had just annihilated all those terrifying monsters, momentarily too stunned to know what to say.

Annie frowned as she watched the Chitauri still flying and attacking the ground in the distant sky, the entire city beginning to billow with thick smoke, along with the constant sounds of explosions and screams... This city—Annie really liked it. Even though she wasn't from Earth, she didn't want to see it destroyed by a bunch of bad guys!

"Teacher Maine! It's dangerous out there, so don't step outside the Light Shield, okay?"

Annie turned to warn her teacher, reminding her not to leave the range of her magic barrier until the danger was over. Then, with a wave of her left hand, she cast a Mage Hand, grabbing her little bear Tibbers from the backpack she'd dropped on the ground. She began accelerating into the distance. She decided that today, she was going to fight hard and make those bad guys know what happens when they piss her off!

Annie felt that she'd been dragged to Earth for no reason, and whether she'd ever get a chance to return to her home in the Voodoo Lands was anyone's guess. She was already pitiful enough! Now, she'd finally found a place she was satisfied with, had a little home and family, plus teachers, classmates, and friends. This city was her designated temporary territory! As far as Annie was concerned: wherever she lived, a hundred miles in every direction was her turf!

And now, look: she'd been tricked out of her homeland, trapped here on Earth, and these bastards actually dared to invade her territory? They were practically asking for death!