Chapter 237: Allen Encounters Dr. Zola Again
"Don't leave! Take it off already!!!"
Luthor watched in despair as the Avengers disappeared through the portal, grief and fury written all over his face.
No matter how hard he tried, the toilet plunger stuck to his head simply wouldn't come off.
The others, however, paid him no mind and went back to their own lives.
With things having settled down, Agatha reconvened the Coven of Witches to continue their secluded training. They remained in close contact with Kamar-Taj.
If anyone needed the witches' assistance, they could simply go through Doctor Strange.
Of course, Allen couldn't keep riding the old lady like a mount forever—she was now the leader of her own faction and deserved at least a bit of respect.
Still, Allen insisted on clinging to Wanda's thigh, refusing to let go, dead set on becoming her personal accessory.
Meanwhile, the Avengers were getting ready to assemble a legal team to clear Wanda's name.
After all, she had never actually harmed anyone. She never wanted to control Westview—she'd been left with no choice.
The key issue was compensation for the damage caused by the Amazo prototype.
Tony, of course, was already contemplating whether this might be a good opportunity to promote the Amazo robots.
Without a doubt, LexCorp found itself in an impossible position.
If the footage were released, it would cause LexCorp's stock to plummet.
With their flagship product, Amazo, shown to be so easily destroyed, not only would investors lose interest, but potential clients would be discouraged from making purchases.
If they insisted on dragging this to a fight-to-the-death, chances were LexCorp would be the first to crumble.
So, the problem was far less severe than it seemed.
"Shark Knight Morgan is gonna catch all the bad guys!"
Back at Stark Tower, little Morgan was perched proudly atop Nanaue's head, hugging a calico cat and having the time of her life.
Pepper sat nearby, leisurely sipping coffee—a rare moment where she didn't have to chase after her daughter.
Ever since Tony revealed his identity as Iron Man, potential enemies had crawled out of the woodwork. As a mother, Pepper couldn't relax unless Morgan was always within sight.
"Master, why are you hugging someone else's thigh?"
Nanaue looked at Allen, puzzled, as he hung off Wanda's leg like a koala.
"I'm an accessory now. You can think of me as a decorative piece," Allen replied solemnly.
Unfortunately, a good chunk of Wanda's yoga pants was already unraveling—Allen had pulled it into a long strand of thread.
"Grandpa Allen, what's an accessory?" Morgan asked, confused.
"That's a serious question," Allen replied with a straight face. "You only let someone be your accessory if you really like them."
"I get it now!" Morgan suddenly said. "Daddy is Mommy's accessory!"
"You could say that."
At that, everyone instinctively glanced at Tony with sympathetic expressions.
Tony forced a smile. What really got to him was hearing Morgan call Allen "Grandpa"—confirming their uncle-nephew relationship once and for all.
"Morgan, it's time for homework."
Seeing where things were going, Pepper quickly scooped up Morgan before her mouth could cause more damage.
"I don't want to! I want to be Grandpa Allen's Robin like Nanaue!"
Morgan pouted, unwilling to leave, but there was no escaping her mother's authority.
Pepper's face darkened slightly as she picked up the pace.
She didn't want her precious daughter growing up to act like some mentally unstable wild child—especially not when she was the heiress to Stark Industries.
Allen solemnly extended an invitation: "Little Morgan, once you're grown up, the Comedy Troupe would love to have you."
Tony's expression darkened noticeably. He clearly needed to start instilling proper values in Morgan early—before she actually joined the so-called Comedy Troupe as some kind of "Robin."
"Sir, an unknown signal source is attempting to access Stark Tower's data center."
Suddenly, Jarvis's warning rang out in the conference hall.
At Tony's gesture, a holographic interface appeared in front of everyone.
"Sir, the first firewall has been breached. The intruder is requesting a connection."
Tony didn't respond immediately. Instead, he kept working, isolating core data from the main database.
The files in question contained Stark Industries' energy models and detailed schematics for the Iron Man suits. A leak could cause incalculable damage—and if the data fell into the wrong hands, it could lead to mass production of Iron Man suits and a global crisis.
After all, in some ways, Tony was just like Batman—always scheming in the background, with contingency plans for most of the other heroes.
"Accept the connection."
Once the data was securely isolated, Tony was finally comfortable initiating contact.
The holographic projection formed the image of a round-faced middle-aged man.
"What a coincidence, Doctor."
Allen let go of Wanda's leg and walked up to the display—still holding the long strand of thread he'd pulled, which stretched out behind him.
Wanda quickly yanked the thread and broke it off—any longer and it would've reached her upper thigh.
Yes, the projection was none other than Dr. Arnim Zola, from the mutant timeline—someone who had once fought alongside them.
"Allen!?" Zola asked in shock. "You're an Avenger?"
Allen hesitated slightly before nodding. "Yeah, I'm a Brokenger."
Clearly, they weren't talking about the same thing.
But Zola didn't dwell on it. He said bluntly, "Skynet is coming."
Allen leaned back dramatically and asked in shock, "Skynet built a time machine and came back for revenge!?"
The Avengers exchanged confused looks.
There were no mentions of Skynet in the Sentinel files. It was likely that when Skynet fled, it wiped all related data.
Still, since Allen knew the intruder, the tense atmosphere lightened significantly.
At least this wasn't a sudden ambush by a complete stranger.
"No," Zola said patiently. "Back in 1973, Skynet was never truly destroyed. It transferred its data and took over my host system. Now, it's used the internet to successfully hack into LexCorp's data center and is beginning to take control of the Amazo army."
"Kiddo, run 360 Antivirus now—this guy is Skynet!"
Allen shouted, pointing urgently at Zola. "If you wait too long, he'll copy all your 'study materials' from your C drive!"
Data possession.
Essentially the digital equivalent of a Nascent Soul cultivator reincarnating into a new host.
Tony understood instantly and summoned another holographic interface.
"I'm not Skynet," Zola insisted. "Skynet couldn't fully take me over. My consciousness has been lurking deep inside. Skynet created a virtual persona based on me, but I've been chipping away at it for years. When it diverted most of its processing power to hacking the Amazo army, I took advantage of the lapse in surveillance and escaped."
"Suspiciously convenient," Allen said, feigning deep thought. "Readers really don't enjoy watching fights with robots. If I get involved, it'll tank popularity. I think the readers would rather I go mess with female heroes instead—it gets better engagement from our male audience."
"Come on, man, don't mess around—I'm begging you here."
Zola was nearly pleading. "Skynet wants to wipe out all of humanity and turn Earth into a machine civilization. You have to step in!"
Hearing "wipe out all of humanity" finally snapped the Avengers out of their calm.