Prologue

Outside of a large, opulent mansion, a random newspaper drifted in the midnight wind and landed near the side of a street lamp, revealing the front page story- One Year Anniversary: Celebration of Avengers Saving the Earth from Galactus. It detailed how a marvelous group of superpowered individuals came together to save their world from unimaginable threats of all kinds- science gone wrong, magic run amok, or cosmic creatures that wished to destroy all life. No matter what person or monster intended to rule or ruin the Earth, it's mightiest heroes were always there to save the day.

As more recruits joined the ranks of the team, larger and more powerful foes arose to combat them. Eventually the aforementioned Galactus- a being of seemingly unstoppable might came to literally consume the world whole. Though the battle against Galactus and his Heralds proved to be the greatest one of all- one for the ages- the Avengers and their allies prevailed, and at that point, all other villains decided to give up. If the team could handle an enemy like that, then no villain saw the point in continuing.

And so for exactly one year… nothing happened; other than common criminals still working in the shadows, the terror of supervillains simply dried up, and thus so did the need for superheroes to fight them. Everyone moved on with their lives, though ever ready to leap back into the fray to battle injustice. But with the continuous lack of a need for them, the heroes grew bored, sluggish… vulnerable.

Thus, on that one year anniversary, exactly at the stroke of midnight, a plan went into motion that would forever change the face of New York, the Avengers, and eventually the rest of the world itself. And moments later, that one team of heroes would be in for a rude awakening to the incoming chaos…

Inside the Avenger's Mansion…

One man, perhaps the most mundane out of the team sleeping there, calmly slept in his bed. The TV across from his bed remained inactive as the man had shut it off before he went to sleep, but soon after the stroke of midnight it turned on again, seemingly of its own accord. Not the product of the supernatural, although that always remained a possibility, but due to the need of a certain organization requiring the sleeping man's attention. Not long after the TV turned on, the face of a dark-skinned man in a blue uniform and eye patch appeared on the screen, and he called out, "Tony? Tony!"

Failing to awaken the sleeping man, the other man took a deep breath and bellowed, "STARK!"

The sleeping man snorted and fumbled out of his bed half-awake, ending up on the floor with a resounding "Thud!", along with some accompanying grumbling. Tony wiped his eyes and mumbled, "Fury? That you? Why are you on my TV? I don't think you or SHIELD are all that newsworthy."

"I don't have time for games, Stark- we have an emergency!", Fury snapped. Tony grumbled again, still largely asleep and not happy about the interruption to his rest. He commented, "What, you lose your favorite eye-patch?"

Fury hurriedly explained, "This is serious, Tony. There's a-"
Tony assumed, "If it's some new supervillain who thinks he's a hotshot, not worry, my team can-"
"Will you let me finish?", Fury snapped again. "The whole city is going under quarantine; you and the rest of the Avengers need to evacuate now!"

Tony shook his head, wondering if he heard the Director of SHIELD correctly. "All of New York is going into lockdown- a quarantine? I didn't know SHIELD handled that sort of thing."

"We don't", Fury elaborated. "Some new agency for the American government I've never heard of before is handling the situation."

Tony initially went for a pair of pants while Fury spoke, but a few choice words made him stare at the TV screen in silence for a few seconds. He actually chuckled a bit and wondered, "Wait, back up a second. Did I hear right? The great Nick Fury- Director of SHIELD and master of putting his nose into other people's business- doesn't know something? That's almost worth getting rudely woken up for."

For the third time Fury harsly told Tony off. "Enough of your snark, Stark, this is serious! People are dying out there!"

That caught Tony's attention, only for a more solemn reason. "People are dying? People are dead already!? What kind of epidemic is this?"

"I don't have many details", Fury admitted, "mainly because the organization in charge of the quarantine won't tell me. But I know some things- it's a virus called 'Blacklight', and the effects are horrifying. Think of gamma radiation that mutates people like the Hulk, only exposure is instantly permanent."
Fury continued, "Here's what footage my agents were able to recover from various news outlets before they were overrun."

"Overrun?", Tony repeated. He wanted to follow up with, 'By what?", but he received his answer when the footage replaced Fury's face on the screen. Tony watched people- or freaks who used to be people- rampage through parts of the city and attack innocent bystanders; fires raging inside buildings and panic all around, everything about society falling apart before his eyes.

Tony shook his head once again and commented, "And everyone in the mansion was just sleeping through this? I don't believe it. How did this even start?"
Fury told him when he reappeared on the screen, "The source of the infection appeared around Penn Station, and rumors abound that the virus originated from a genetics firm called 'Gentek'. All sources say they're a harmless pharmaceuticals group that specializes in vaccines, but my gut is telling me that's a lie."
Annoyed and upset at the devastating news, Tony told Fury, "I… my team isn't made for handling outbreaks. There's no villain to punch out or anything. I don't know what I can do."
"You can start by evacuating yourself and the rest of your team", Fury repeated. "If that new organization is going to find a cure for this madness, then we'll need the expertise of every scientist we can find to aid them- you, Pym, anyone with a degree in out of control science like this."

Once Tony got the rest of his clothing on, he turned his attention to Fury one last time and asked, "And just who exactly thinks they're going to contain this chaos in the meantime?"
Fury explained, "Like I said, I know next to nothing about these people…"
"Which at first made me smile, but now is filling me with anxiety", Tony admitted. Fury finished, "But I know their name at least- they call themselves… 'Blackwatch'."

Earlier that day...

Casually laying in a chair, a young man ate lunch and browsed the Web on his personal laptop. A notification from his sister told him to watch for a special report on the news, and with some dread building up in him, he straightened his posture and waited for the newswoman to give said report. She began with, "Once again, the infamous hacker 'Malware' made a daring attack on a powerful figure in New York City, this time their target being none other than Tony Stark himself, with the cyber-attack occurring inside Stark Tower. Between meddling in data banks and giving both software engineers and technicians severe headaches trying to fix the damage, Malware ended their assault by coming away with a cool one million dollars straight from Mr. Stark's personal bank account. Mr. Stark had this to say."

Right after she said that Mr. Stark appeared on the screen and lamented, "It's not so much the money and research being corrupted that I'm upset about, though antics like those certainly don't do me any good. I'm more irritated by the mere fact that people would do this to me even though I literally helped save the world. On more than one occasion, in fact. I and my team have risked life and limb to keep people safe, good or bad, and those same bad people are easily willing to spit in our eyes and ruin our hard work. It's just so disappointing."

The reporter there to interview Mr. Stark asked him what he planned to do next, to which the man replied, "I'm going to do what I've done to every other criminal who's crossed my path- take them down and bring them to justice. This 'Malware' menace is going down, hard."

With the video done, Alex stopped slouching completely and pulled out his phone to immediately call up his sister and call her out on what she did. Before he could even speak, he received the cheery answer of, "Hey, it's my favorite brother! Did you see the news?"

"Yes", he replied through gritted teeth. His sister continued, "And… what do you think?"

"What do I think, Dana?", Alex parroted with pessimism. "I think you've doubled your chances of getting yourself into a world of pain. First, you go after bank accounts of rich but otherwise normal people; then business conglomerates; then fucking SHIELD of all agencies… and now you've gone after an official superhero. How exactly do you want to die? Because I guarantee it's not going to be a quick one."

Dana scoffed. "Oh, relax; it's Tony Stark the 'Iron Man'. He's not gonna kill me. He'd berate me and get me jailed bigtime if I ever get caught- which is a very big 'if', mind you- but definitely not kill me."

"Need I remind you that Mr. Stark has both a suit of highly destructive armor… and a drinking problem?", Alex retorted. "He may be off the bottle now, but a man with so many things on his plate- leading a multi-billion dollar company and being a member of a superhero team he founded- he'll relapse sooner rather than later. Not to mention that he has, in fact, killed people before; Obadiah Stane is one of the first people to lose their life because of him."

"Stane died by suicide", Dana pointed out. Alex replied in kind, "Still dead though. So please, please stop it with the hacking already. I know we've done things we're not proud of to survive, but that life is behind both of us now. I'm the head scientist of a genetics research firm and you're a… a… what do you do again? I.T. person?"

"Yeah", Dana answered. "It's boring as Hell, which is why I do the hacker thing in the first place."
Alex muttered, "Dana, I… ugh. We'll talk about this tomorrow. Currently, I'm in the middle of lunch and would like to finish it. Then I can finish the gene-sequencing for the latest viral test, hand in my report, and finally go home. This has been an exhausting day."

"So, how's the whole 'cure for cancer' thing going?", Dana wondered. Alex corrected her, "It's not a cure for cancer- it's a cure for everything. Every disease, deformity and malady known to medical science can be eradicated in one go if this virus works the way I want it to. The long and short of it is that it survives in the host body for as long as it can, eating and assimilating- or 'Consuming' as I like to call it- everything it's sequenced to deem a threat. It could Consume cancer cells or dead skin cells if I want it to. Modified correctly, it could even be the greatest cosmetic tool known to mankind- dandruff and flaky skin could be things of the past."

Dana raised an eyebrow. "Really? That sounds a little unrealistic."

"Well… it's not completely finished yet", Alex admitted. "There's plenty of variables that need to be tested in Petri dishes of human DNA before anyone even thinks of animal testing, let alone human subjects."

"May I ask what makes this virus so many versatile… assuming it'll even work?", Dana continued to prod. Alex hesitated for a moment and asked, "Any chance SHIELD is listening in on this conversation? I'm about to break a major rule by telling you, and I'm only breaking it because you'll keep bugging me about it until I finally give in."

Dana asserted, "Trust me- there's no one but us here."

Alex took a breath and said, "Alright… the reason the virus is so powerful is because of the two main ingredients, one of which is guaranteed to blow your mind. The first one is the base virus- Redlight- which is used to make the second- Blacklight; it's so aggressive that it borders on sci-fi in how it can mutate DNA. The second ingredient is… well…"
"C'mon...", Dana sarcastically stated. "The suspense is killing me."

"Gentek has the Super Soldier serum", Alex admitted. His sister went completely silent on her end of the phone until she eventually asked, "... What? The serum? The one that made Captain-fucking-America? But- how!? How the Hell could Gentek get a hold of that?"

"No clue", Alex told her. "Gentek has its ways."

Dana blurted, "Alex, that's insane! If you did it, that serum with the virus could make someone into a… a Super Captain America!"

"Hell no", Alex asserted, "this virus is way too unpredictable for that sort of thing. In this untested state, I wouldn't want to expose it to even my worst enemies."

Dana suggested, "Not even your boss?"

"Karen isn't that bad", Alex told her. "I don't get much free time while I'm at work, but that's because, y'know, I'm at work."

He checked the time on his computer and realized, "I gotta cut this conversation short, sis. Lunch is almost over; then it's back to gene-sequencing. Talk to you later."

Dana agreed and Alex cut the connection, then hurriedly finished the rest of his food before getting ready to head back into the lab. He spent the rest of the afternoon working in the lab and introducing different strains of the virus into Petri dishes, watching their interactions with the available human DNA at the microscopic level. Alex could only imagine what the unfinished products would do to an entire human body, though he preferred if those ideas remained solely as admittedly morbid fantasies than reality.

When he eventually finished with the testing, he wrote down the results and clipped the papers together into a single bundle, carrying them to his boss's office. Knocking on the door, Alex asked, "Ms. Parker?"

"Come in", his boss replied, sitting at her desk as Alex walked in. He handed her the report and told her, "Here are the results of today's experiments. So far combining the virus with the serum has been easy enough, but correctly coding it so that it dissipates in a given host after the intended alterations are complete is just not happening."

"It's an acceptable trade-off for the benefits", Ms. Parker determined. Alex questioned, "Even if it turns people into something less than human? I've seen what this virus does to organic material day after day- what starts out as normal DNA is changed into something so bizarre and unnerving that I'm not even sure if calling it alive anymore would be accurate."

Ms. Parker asserted, "It's fine, Alex. The other geneticists can work out of the bugs themselves if it's that much of an issue for you."

Alex held his tongue and calmly replied, "No, it won't be."

Ms. Parker nodded and dismissed Alex, unaware of him muttering under his breath on the way out, in which he likened her to a derogatory term associated with female dogs. While walking down the hallway which leads to the front of the building, Alex could not help but feel a great deal of unease regarding his boss's unusual disregard for the major defect in the virus, where it did not target itself to burn out in a host body and leave no unexpected changes. Normally a woman who demanded absolute perfection, that being something Alex provided in turn, the fact that she did not seem concerned about the side effects made him concerned.

This absentmindedness resulted in Alex arriving at the rotating gate which kept anyone but employees out of the building, at which point he realized he forgot his ID badge. Grumbling aloud, "Of all the contrived things to forget…", he turned around and searched for his missing ID first near his lab, though failed to locate it there. Then he went back to the lunchroom in case he had taken it off there and forgotten it, though again he could not find it, leaving the last possible location being somewhere near Ms. Parker's office.

Alex spotted it lying on the ground a ways away from the office door; it most likely fell out of his back pocket while on his way there the first time. He snagged the ID and kept on walking, though Karen's voice from inside her office piqued his curiosity. Not quite on the best terms with the woman, Alex did not feel any guilt about listening in on her conversation with someone on the phone and thus held his ear near the door to catch almost every word.

"- going well", Ms. Parker said, continuing from her last point that Alex did not get to hear. "Although progress is generally slow, the geneticists have finally fixed the virus where it remains stable in the host, and with the enhancements they can already grant being stable as well, I believe we are at the stage where we sell certain strains to the highest bidder. It may not be the Super Soldier serum exactly, but it's definitely the next best thing."

Alex kept his ear close to the door to try hearing what the person on the other end of the phone said to his boss, but he could not make out the sentences. He could only postulate what they said when Ms. Parker replied with, "Don't worry- everyone not in the know has already left the building, including our head researcher, Mr. Mercer. Once he completes the vaccine to the virus- which is entirely optional for the buyers to purchase- he'll be disposed of like everyone else."

At that moment Alex backed away, realizing just how bad things truly were behind the scenes; he thought the missing scientists were just being laid off like he had been told, not "disposed of" as Mr. Parker dispassionately put it. With his life on the line and his life's work being sold for illegal profit, the young geneticist knew he had to do something then and there before he would be dealt with as the others had been. Eyes darting everywhere for what his next move should be, Alex found himself drawing near the lab again with an idea forming in his mind.

Inside the room, he arrived at the cryogenic freezing container which held the various strains of the virus for future testing. Among the types there- DX-1118 C, the baseline for the others; DX-1120, the most stable viral strain; and countless others which were either too unstable or untested- Alex grabbed the first one, studying the vial of red-gold fluid before quietly stuffing it into his jacket pocket. He knew he had to get the word out about what Gentek planned to do, and having a physical copy of the proof would make for substantial evidence against their agenda.

However, that would not be enough; Alex required proof that they were doing human testing illegally as well. The only place which could possibly hold that would be none other than Ms. Parker's private office, and despite his dread, he knew he had to get in there and take what he could get his hands on. Alex walked out of the lab and snuck over to her door, placing his ear next to it to check if she had left or not.

Upon hearing no movement for the longest time, he checked the doorknob and found it unlocked, at which point Alex slowly turned it and snuck in. He made it to her desk and checked the top for anything suspicious, shuffling some papers around until he found exactly what he hoped to find- a folder conveniently marked "Human Testing". Opening up the file and peering at the pictures inside…
"Oh, Jesus!", Alex blanched, experiencing a shiver run down his spine and forcing him to close the folder immediately out of overwhelming disgust. With the second piece of evidence in hand, he walked back to the door and out of it, wondering where Ms. Parker went. Sticking to the shadowy sections of the building, he made it about halfway through before noticing Ms. Parker walking back to her office, making Alex double-time it before she discovered his treachery.

By the time he made it to the security checkpoint of Gentek, he thought he would make it past there before a voice called out, "Alex?"

Alex turned his head and saw Ms. Parker standing several meters away from him. She began, "You were supposed to be gone already. Now I have a file missing from my office, and I can only assume one of the vials from the lab is missing as well. If you're doing what I think is it you're doing, then you're going to fail. Now, hand over both of my things and I'll be lenient with you."

"Your things, Karen?", Alex indignantly asked. "This virus is the culmination of all my hard work at Gentek, and this file is proof that you've been using it on innocent people, all so you could make a quick buck selling it as a cheap knock-off to the Super Soldier serum to the highest bidder. There's no way I'm going to let you turn my greatest gift to the world into nothing more than another weapon for idiot nations to use against each other."

Ms. Parker argued, "Alex, do you think you're going to get out of here, out of the city? I've already told my contact of what you've done; you'll never make it out of New York in time. It'd be better if you just quit now and maybe they'll go easy on you, and that's a very unlikely 'maybe'. Because if you even try leaving this building, they'll kill you for sure."

"Fuck that, and fuck you Karen", Alex spat, bolting for the exit. Ms. Parker called after security to go after him but they were too late- he made it out of the building and started his car, rushing out of the parking lot by the time the guards got outside. Staring at Alex's car vanish in the distance, Ms. Parker called her mysterious phone contact again and stated, "He's on the run, carrying a vial of the virus and photos of the human test subjects in a folder. Send your team in, but be careful- Alex Mercer cannot be allowed to leave the city, and neither can that virus. If there's an outbreak… then this whole city will descend into chaos."

Several hours later, outside of the city…

Inside a tent spacious enough to accommodate most of the Avengers and multiple agents of SHIELD, all were anxious about what would happen to the city. At least most of the Avengers were; Tony recalled fellow teammates Hawkeye, Wasp and the Hulk all asleep in a different tent due to having to wake up at a such an unusual time. Turning back to Nick Fury, Tony asked, "So… what happens now?"

Fury explained, "For now, all the Avengers and SHIELD can do is let Blackwatch handle the situation. Their leader is arriving onto the scene as we speak- he should be able to tell us what's going on in the city."

Not long after he said that, a man in typical army camo clothing and a matching beret walked into the tent, followed by a woman in a business suit and blond hair. They both made their way over to Tony and Nick and shook their hands, revealing the army man had a bionic arm as a replacement to his lost one. He greeted the duo with, "Iron Man and the Director of SHIELD. It's a pleasure to meet both of you."

"Pleasure's all mine", Nick replied. "Though I wish it could be under better circumstances than this. The Avengers and I are still in the dark about what's going on. Maybe you could shed some light for us?"

Randall nodded. "Of course. But first, allow me to introduce the CEO of Gentek, Ms. Karen Parker. She can explain how this whole outbreak started."

Standing in the midst of the SHIELD agents and Avengers, Ms. Parker stated, "Gentek has been working on a revolutionary virus for some time now. Capable of temporarily bestowing the host with immunity to any known disease or ailment, it would be the ultimate innovation in medical science."

"Unfortunately the head geneticist, one Alexander J. Mercer, believed we were 'wasting our time' by limiting the virus to simply curing people and then harmlessly burn out in the host's body- he wanted to evolve it to be the equivalent of the Super Soldier serum and sell it for profit. Out of jealousy, he stole an incomplete sample of the virus and classified research notes in order to complete it himself. We alerted Blackwatch to Mercer's intent and they swiftly worked to apprehend him, but once cornered at Penn Station, we believe he intentionally broke the vial containing the virus as an act of spite."

Tony pondered, "What kind of impulsive maniac would do that?"

Handing him a file folder, Ms. Parker continued, "We were wary of Mr. Mercer from the beginning, but could not deny his brilliance with genetics. His history reveals repeated anger management issues, run-ins with the authorities, and other problems. Suffice to say, this was surely inevitable. Clearly, we should have taken better precautions around him."

Fury took hold of the file and skimmed through the pages, commenting, "Mmm-hmm. He definitely looks like the type of person who would act so irrationally. But how did Blackwatch get to him so quickly? I've never even heard of this organization before yesterday."

Randall explained, "Due to Mercer's volatile nature, Ms. Parker contacted us some time ago and had us keep watch over him in secret, and secrecy is what we're best at. We thought we could detain Mercer with minimal force if he ever went rogue, but never did I believe it would come to this."

He sighed. "All Blackwatch can do now is contain the chaos as best we can, and keep the infected away from the safe zone as best we can."

Tony asked, "What about a potential cure?"
Ms. Parker elaborated, "Naturally, Alex's corpse has the most concentration of the virus in his body, so Gentek is currently working on synthesizing a vaccine from him. However, as far as a 'cure' goes, the only thing that can be done for the already infected is termination. Only the non-infected can be saved through vaccination."

"What exactly is happening to the infected?", Fury questioned Ms. Parker, to which she stated, "Due to the instability of this particular strain, coupled with Alex's intentions, it's turning almost everyone into mindless monsters. The virus was meant to only target certain things in a host's body- dead skin cells, other viruses, things like that. After it finished with a given task, it was supposed to target itself and leave no trace behind in the host's body. Without the final gene-sequencing, this virus will continue violently changing people- without rhyme, reason or limit- into a horde of monsters."

Tony wondered, "Literal monsters… again. Is this going to be as bad as that 'Gamma World' incident some time ago, or worse?"

Randall raised an eyebrow and wondered in return, "Gamma World?"

Ms. Parker briefly explained, "Massive radiation incident", before telling everyone else, unlike that event, there's nothing that can be done to save the afflicted, save termination and cremation."

"That's depressing", Tony noted. "Normally when a crisis like this comes up, we can keep casualties to a minimum, or even none at all on the better days."

Ms. Parker dismissively replied, "This whole mess should be over in about a week, two weeks tops. We have Alex's body in custody and our geneticists are already in the process of deriving a vaccine from his corpse, so there should be no further compli-"

Suddenly her phone vibrated in her pocket, leading Ms. Parker to politely excuse herself and move to a corner of the tent to have her conversation. However, from the way, her voice rose in volume noticeably, it became clear that there would indeed be further complications regarding the outbreak. Returning to the others and shaking her head, Ms. Parker bemoaned, "This can't be happening- Alex has… he's escaped!"

"I thought you told us he was dead", Fury exclaimed. Ms. Parker kept shaking her head, groaning, "Of all the people the virus could have successfully bonded to… it just had to be him. I don't know how, but the virus has somehow bonded to him when it was released and when he supposedly died. Now he's escaped the morgue and is running rampant across the city. Who knows what the virus inside of him is capable of?"

Sighing, she continued, "In its incomplete state, there's no telling what Alex will be able to do."

"Who can do what?", a new voice suddenly asked. Everyone turned and found two of the formerly sleeping Avenger members- Wasp and Hawkeye- standing there in the tent doorway. Hawkeye yawned and muttered, "Sorry we missed the briefing; it's kinda past our bedtimes. Speaking of which, I was really zoned-out when we were heading out of the city. Was the zombie apocalypse thing part of my imagination or…?"

Tony affirmed, "Not your imagination, though it's not quite a zombie apocalypse."

Hawkeye turned to Wasp and gloated, "Ha! Called it. Knew it wasn't a dream", before walking further inside and commenting, "Cap and Thor are outside, watching the city."

He and Wasp nodded to Randall and Ms. Parker before Wasp asked, "So, what can the Avengers do to help?"

Randall immediately stated, "Absolutely nothing. As much as it is a pleasure meeting the Avengers and SHIELD, this situation is something only Blackwatch can take care of. Suffice to say... no one but us would have the stomach for what needs to be done."

Iron Man retorted, "Are you sure? Capturing Alex Mercer sounds like something we can handle."

Ms. Parker explained, "It's not that- it's dealing with the infected. They're not like gamma mutants where a few swings to the head will knock them out. The only thing that'll stop them is termination, and I mean complete termination."

Hawkeye countered, "Excuse me, but if comic books and real life have taught me one thing, it's that you need superheroes to fight supervillains. Sure I was an agent of SHIELD, but I'm not wearing this colorful costume as a fashion statement."

"Who's this Alex guy anyway?", Wasp wondered. Fury handed her the file folder and let her flip through it, and a moment later she noted, "Cool jacket."

Everyone just looked at her and made her add, "What? It has two dragons on the back. You can't deny that isn't cool."

Hawkeye peered at the picture and commented, "Cool? This guy is wearing dress shoes with jeans! If his outfit doesn't scream 'supervillain', then it screams 'complete fashion disaster', and I'm the one wearing all purple for crying out loud."

Ms. Parker asserted with a hint of irritation in her voice, "Regardless, Alex is entirely a Blackwatch and Gentek priority. Besides, without proper gear, you'd be infected within minutes. The virus doesn't just travel through direct contact with other infected people- it contaminates everything."

Tony thought about it and hypothesised, "I've developed suits for the team that can withstand the vacuum of space and be more durable than conventional armor. If we got a hold of those, it wouldn't take much for me to modify them for other hostile environments."

Fury pointed out, "Your mansion's in the middle of the Red Zone- there's no way to get to them without surely being infected before reaching them. However, SHIELD can supply you with the necessary equipment to create new ones."

Tony smirked. "I get to play with SHIELD's toys? Maybe this day isn't so bad after all."

With that, Fury turned to Randall and Ms. Parker, imploring them, "I know the Avengers aren't affiliated with any government and thus are an independent organization, but they've done things that no one else has done. Let them help you."

Randall and Ms. Parker shared a glance before returning their gaze to Fury, and both reluctantly agreed. At that point Hawkeye began to walk out of the tent, stating, "I'll go tell Cap and Thor we're good to go."

He went back outside and found the First Avenger and God of Thunder watching the city from the edge of a railing. Cap commented to his friend, "In my day, the worst disease outbreak I ever heard of was the Black Death in Europe from history class. But this is… this is so much worse than that."

Thor agreed. "Plagues always bring death and desolation. So much worse than any battle, for there is no enemy to fight… only friends to say farewell to. And worse still, this came about because science was trying to make something good from something destructive, only for more destruction to come about because of it. If only there were a foe we could fight to bring an end to this chaos."

"You're in luck, then", Hawkeye commented, walking up behind them. "I just learned who caused this zombie apocalypse… one Alexander J. Mercer."

He handed them a photo from the file folder and allowed them to see their future foe, and at which point Thor tightened the grip on his hammer and asserted, "Then let us find this 'Mercer' and bring him to justice. His deed will not go unpunished."

Captain America nodded. "Avengers… we have a city to save."

(Author's Note)

This is my first official story on . I am so excited, please favorite and review so I can get as much criticism as I can to improve this story. Me and Blitz king are co-writing this story together go check him out and his work. He's a great writer and I couldn't have made this story without him. I hope you all enjoy the story.