It didn’t take long for Clint and Mirio to recover, rising to their feet to fight the good fight once more…

Natasha and Steve covered for Mirio and Clint as they recovered, but there was only so much they could do against the nearly limitless supply of Chitauri Soldiers…

With each movement of Clint’s fingers, arrows rained from the skies once more…

Clint took aim at the few Chitauri who sought to hinder the civilians that would occasionally dart from building to building…

It was no surprise that civilians were unsure of where to run since everything was currently chaos…

Actually, even Mirio had lost track of just how many Chitauri Soldiers he had defeated, and out of all the Avengers, he had probably defeated the least…

It felt like a battle that would never end, and all the Avengers were beginning to grow tired, even The God of Thunder, Thor…

Mirio leaped forward, permeating through the blow of the Chitauri Elite ahead…

“Absolute Touch Brain Crush…” Mirio yelled, pushing two of his fingers through the Chitauri Elite’s head, and making his fingers tangible for a split second, piercing the brain of the creature.

The Chitauri Elite plopped to the ground lifelessly, and Mirio was comforted by the fact that the Chitauri brain was mostly mechanical parts, with a lot of air gaps in-between…

Mirio had never used his permeation quirk in such a way until today, but as he grew more tired, more direct ways of combat were necessary to conserve energy…

Though, Mirio’s permeation quirk was a double-edged sword, and he had to admit that the sharper end of the sword was pointed at his opponent…

After all, how long could you fare against someone you could not touch? Someone that could literally permeate his fingers into your brain stem?

As long as there was a gap of course…

-------------------

Clint glanced at Mirio and felt a bit of envy at the ease with which Mirio could take down a Chitauri Elite…

Out of everyone there, he was the only one that had no advantages at all…

Of course, his inhuman-like precision was lethal to his enemies, but that was something honed through countless years of hard work and training…

Clint noted that he was the only member of the Avengers that could be considered a normal person…

Of course, SHIELD had conducted a couple experiments here and there to enhance his precision, but it was nothing as exaggerated as everyone else…

Mirio could permeate through anything…

Stark could probably make a suit strong enough to destroy a continent if he wished…

Thor was literally a God…

Bruce was the Hulk, nuff said…

Even Natasha was a watered-down version of a super-soldier; though, the way she achieved that status was inhumane…

Still, Clint felt a bit of pride being able to hold his own amongst Gods and super-soldiers as a human…

So… the next time he told his kids they could achieve anything, he would really mean it because a human fighting alongside a God literally meant ‘anything’…

Even lost in his thoughts, Clint’s bow never ceased firing, arrow after arrow was launched at every Chitauri Soldier and Elite in his sights…

Still, one of the Chitauri Elites drifted closer than was safe, leaping across a ten-foot distance to strike a blow at Clint directly…

Clint leaped back at the exact moment the Chitauri Elite’s fist impacted his chest, sending him flying through the air…

Even though the pain of the attack knocked the wind out of him, it was dampened by his backward motion…

Besides, Clint had been subjected to worse torture in Budapest…

Clint twirled his body mid-air, drawing an arrow into his bow and aiming at the Chitauri Elite that had attacked him…

There was no clear line of sight at the Chitauri Elite’s head, so Clint aimed at the feet of the creature and fired a retractable arrow…

The arrow nailed itself into the left foot of the Chitauri Elite, and Clint was tugged back towards the stagnant creature…

Mid-air as he was being pulled towards the creature, Clint had already folded his bow into a sword, and with one huge swing, the Chitauri Elite was decapitated…

Clint rolled on the ground to disperse the momentum, and patted his bow lovingly, a headless body falling behind him…

It was only recently that Fury offered to upgrade his bow with melee capabilities, so now his bow could fold into a small staff, a short sword, and a bladed edge…

‘Who needs swords?’ Clint thought…

---------------------

Mirio grabbed a nearby garbage can and tossed it with all his strength at a Chitauri Soldier, smashing the creature into the searing heat of the nearby rubble…

Mirio turned his gaze and examined the battlefield, noting that Natasha was locked in a fierce battle with three Chitauri Elites, dodging their blows by a hair-thin margin…

Mirio rushed to her aid, but halfway to her aid, he was greeted by Natasha bludgeoning the second Chitauri Elite after slaying the first…

Mirio was appalled by the grace with which Natasha fought, and that distraction cost him dearly…

A Chitauri Elite tackled him to the ground, striking at his head with its sharpened claws…

Mirio barely managed to move his neck out of the way, allowing the Chitauri Elite’s claws to sink into the concrete streets of New York…

Mirio attempted to permeate but the tingle in his spine delayed him a bit, leaving him vulnerable to the second attack of the Chitauri Elite… an attack that would no doubt claim his life…

---PPPPEEEEEWWWW---

---PPPPEEEEEWWWW---

---PPPPEEEEEWWWW---

Thankfully, an unexpected ally came to Mirio’s aid…

Several army trucks armed with Machine Guns and explosives made their presence known on the battlefield…

However, with the appearance of the army came desperate civilians rushing out of nearby buildings, seeking whatever safety could be offered…

Mirio and the Avengers were heroes in the civilians’ hearts, but only the army could truly put their minds at ease…

A pregnant woman rushed out of a nearby building directly into two Chitauri Soldiers…

Luckily, Natasha was close by, using her stingers to stun the Chitauri Soldiers before they could harm the pregnant woman…

Mirio caught sight of a Chitauri Elite and prepared for battle once more, but the moment he tried to rush forward, he felt something clinging to his legs…

He glanced down and was instantly greeted by the sight of a scared child clinging to his legs for safety…

The distraction was just enough…

The moment Mirio’s eyes left the incoming Chitauri Elite, its left claws pierced through his shoulder, and the creature’s right claws were moments away from piercing through the head of the child that clung to Mirio’s legs…

The world in Mirio’s eyes slowed to a crawl…

Mirio forced the tingle in his spine to disappear so he could use his permeation quirk, but the more he forced the tingle away, the greater the pain he had to bear…

Ultimately, he was unable to activate his quirk instantaneously…

‘I am not able to save her…’ Mirio thought, attempting to leverage his body in the way of the Chitauri’s attack, sparing the child from death at the cost of his own life…

‘I’m sorry…’

‘I was too weak…’

‘If only I was stronger…’

‘I am going to let another child down…’

A bunch of negative thoughts rushed to the forefront of Mirio’s mind, reminding him of the moment he left Eri to suffer under Overhaul…

‘NO!’ Mirio’s will clashed against his negative thoughts ‘I will never give up!”

“Lemillion never gives up!” Mirio roared aloud, feeling something awaken in his body that wasn’t there before…

It was the embers of a flame that was foreign to him, but he could feel that the embers awakened by using the heroism in his soul…

Then Mirio recalled what All Might taught him at UA…

‘Young Mirio…. If you feel that you have given your all and have no more left to give, just think about all those who you want to protect and then push past your limits...P-’

“PPPPLLLLLUUUUSSSSS UUULLLLLTTTTRRRRAAAAAAA!”

Mirio yelled in a voice so loud that it overshadowed all the explosions on the battlefield…

It was like a rallying call to all allies…

Mirio pushed past the pain in his spine, and instantly activated his quirk, pulling himself and the child into his void of nothingness…

However, Mirio could also sense that the Chitauri Elite was also in his void of nothingness because its claws were lodged in his shoulders…

Mirio focused on himself without the claws, and permeated himself and the child into a deeper state of nothingness… this was something he had never tried before…

Mirio didn’t even know if it was possible to permeate twice but somehow, he did it…

He permeated himself and the child further, leaving the Chitauri Elite unable to harm neither him nor the child…

The Chitauri Elite’s claws passed through the head of the child without inflicting any damage, and then its body continued to sink forward…

Mirio was unable to hold his quirk any longer since the stamina required to permeate twice was intense…

So, he used the remaining time to pull the child into his arms and out of the way of the Chitauri Elite…

----BBBBOOOOOOOOMMMM---

Dust filled the air, obscuring the events that had occurred after Mirio’s sudden shout…

Natasha, Clint, and Steve watched with sadness at the thought that Mirio and the child had met their demise…

But as the dust cleared, Mirio could be seen kneeling with the child in his arms, his shirt torn to almost shreds…

As for the Chitauri Elite… half of its body was visible above ground, and the other half had merged with the street…

Natasha smiled with sadness at the fact that Mirio refused to leave a child behind even when it could have cost him his life…

“If only I could have been as brave as him back then…” Natasha murmured, but the battle continued regardless of their sentiments…

But Mirio had done something new – his permeation could also merge solid matter…