Shendu Arrives at the New York Battle

New York, Manhattan, atop Stark Tower.

The Tesseract was releasing energy wildly.

The Avengers had all entered the battle.

Iron Man was chasing a Leviathan through the skies, Captain America was directing police to evacuate civilians on Forty-Second Street, Black Widow was riding a Chitauri aircraft and rolling through the air, and Hawkeye stood atop a church spire, drawing his bow again and again.

No one noticed that something had appeared atop the lightning rod of the Empire State Building.

It was a stone statue of a coiled dragon.

Dark green scales, a ferocious dragon head, and five claws gripping the metal lightning rod tightly.

Shendu was utterly bewildered.

Three minutes ago, he had still been in the "Chinese Ancient Religious Art Exhibition" section of the Hong Kong Museum of History, enshrined beneath a glass case. A placard beside him read: "Ming Dynasty stone dragon. Origin unknown. Function unknown. A product of the fusion of folk belief and Buddhist art."

Bullshit.

He was Shendu.

Shendu, one of the Eight Demons. He had once ruled China, even all of Asia, yet a bunch of archaeologists had labeled him a "Ming Dynasty folk art piece" and arranged a circle of electronic candles beneath his feet.

Those candles were solar-powered too. They lit up every night, making him look like some giant lucky cat.

Then there had been a flash of white light.

And he had appeared here.

Shendu swept his gaze across his surroundings.

Unfamiliar buildings rose into the clouds, iron birds flew wildly through the sky, humans dressed in bizarre clothing ran everywhere, and there were those blue monsters. They looked like the lesser demons illustrated in Uncle's Spellbook, except with far more advanced technology.

He was not quite sure what had happened.

But there was one thing he knew for certain: he could move.

He could feel a warm mass of energy pulsing somewhere in his chest.

The Mouse Talisman.

The talisman that turned stillness into motion and granted life to inanimate objects.

Shendu was ecstatic.

The twelve talismans had been scattered for over a thousand years. He had thought he would never gather them all again. Yet after crossing into this world, the Mouse Talisman had actually come with him?

He tried moving his claws.

Crack.

A thin fissure split the stone shell, revealing dark green scales beneath it.

Crack, crack, crack.

The cracks spread over his body like a spiderweb.

"Hahahaha!" Shendu threw back his head and laughed.

The wind howled past his ears, neon lights streaked by at his side. This feeling was incredible. A thousand years—he had been sealed for a full thousand years. And now, finally—

Bang!

A massive silver figure slammed into him from the side.

Shendu was sent flying like a ball. He smashed through two billboards, crashed through the glass curtain wall of a building, and finally rolled into an office.

He struggled to rise from the rubble, shook his head, and saw what had sent him flying.

A Leviathan.

The metal behemoth, over three hundred meters long, was plowing along the path he had just flown through, its back packed with Chitauri soldiers.

Shendu froze.

What the hell was that?

He had lived for thousands of years. He had seen dragons of the East Sea, merfolk of the South Sea, and giant lizard dragons from the West, but he had never seen such a mechanized fish.

While he was staring blankly, a red-and-gold figure shot beneath the beast, trailing flames behind it.

Then a hole exploded open in the beast's belly. Sparks flew everywhere as its enormous body began to tilt.

Iron Man burst out of the flames and hovered in midair, seemingly inspecting the results of his attack.

Shendu narrowed his eyes.

Something was off.

This scene seemed strangely familiar.

He turned to look at the magazines scattered around the office—Variety, The Hollywood Reporter. Their covers featured foreign faces he did not recognize, and a pile of comic books lay in one corner.

The one on top had several large words printed across its cover: THE AVENGERS.

A group of people stood in a circle on the cover. In the middle was a blond, broad-chested man holding a shield.

Shendu fell silent.

He had spent decades sitting in a museum, listening to tourists talk every day.

"Marvel movies have another sequel." "Iron Man is so cool." "Are Captain America and Winter Soldier actually together?" It would have been difficult not to know about this crap.

In other words, the world he had crossed into was the Marvel universe.

Shendu raised a claw and looked at his dark green scales, then looked at the alien army raging outside the window. His feelings were complicated.

The good news was that he had regained the ability to move.

The bad news was that moving was all he could do.

Although the Mouse Talisman had come with him, it had merely brought him to life.

No enhanced strength. No ability to fly. No energy attacks.

Right now, he was just a somewhat stronger fire-breathing dragon. He could not even withstand a single charge from that Leviathan.

As for dark magic, Ancient One was clearing out lesser enemies nearby. Using it would only get him killed faster.

The worse news was that this world was at war, and he had appeared right in the middle of the battlefield.

A flurry of hurried footsteps sounded outside.

Shendu turned his head. Several fleeing employees ran past the office door. The moment they saw him, they all froze, let out synchronized screams, and then ran even faster.

At the very back was a balding, bespectacled middle-aged man. As he ran, he kept looking back, trembling as he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture. He muttered, "I'm going viral, I'm going viral. Exclusive news—an Eastern true dragon has appeared at the Empire State Building!"

Shendu: "..."

Three minutes later.

Shendu crouched in an alley somewhere between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue, doing his best to curl himself into a ball.

Those blue monsters seemed interested in every living creature that moved.

Three Chitauri patrols had already chased him. Each time, he could only stumble and scramble away, relying on his unfamiliarity with the terrain to evade them.

For Shendu, one of the Eight Demons, to have fallen this low was truly unprecedented.

Another explosion and burst of gunfire came from outside the alley.

Shendu poked his head out and saw a group of police officers firing into the sky across the street, covering dozens of civilians as they retreated toward a subway entrance.

Chitauri soldiers swooped through the low sky, their energy weapons spraying fire. Chunks of marble flew from the shattered pavement.

A woman carrying a child ran at the back of the group. Her foot caught on something, and she fell to the ground.

A Chitauri soldier swung his weapon toward her.

Then a shield flew over.

The round red, white, and blue shield struck the Chitauri soldier squarely in the chest, knocking him off his aircraft. It bounced off a wall and flew back into its owner's hand.

A blond, blue-eyed man in a star-spangled bodysuit rushed out from the side. He hauled the woman and child to their feet, shielding them as he led them toward the subway entrance.

Captain America, Steve Rogers.

Shendu's eyes lit up.

He had heard The Avengers discussed countless times in the museum and knew this man's personality well enough.

His sense of justice was off the charts, his sense of responsibility excessive. Whenever he saw someone in need of help, he could not simply walk away.

Most importantly, the entire Avengers team stood behind him. Stark Tower served as their base, and S.H.I.E.L.D. provided their resources.

If Shendu could worm his way into that circle...

Shendu lowered his head and looked at his claws.

In his current state, even protecting himself was difficult. Chitauri were running rampant throughout the city, and for an eye-catching dragon like him, getting captured was only a matter of time.

But if he could get on Captain America's good side, he could at least secure temporary shelter.

As for what came after, he would deal with it later.

He took a deep breath and adjusted his expression. He needed to look weak but harmless, with a trace of panic in his eyes—but not so much that it seemed fake.

Then he crawled out of the alley and ran toward Captain America.

Steve had just sent the last group of civilians into the subway entrance and was about to turn back toward the battlefield when he heard a strange set of footsteps behind him.

Patter, patter, patter.

He turned and raised his shield.

Then he froze.

A dragon.

Dark green scales, an Eastern design, no bloated belly or bat wings like a Western dragon. It was a little over two meters long and sprinting across the ground in an awkward posture.

Most importantly, it was running straight toward him!