"First you go, tin can," Luke said casually while waving his hand. "You're not needed here."
Ultron disappeared.
His body simply turned into dust instantly, the vibranium shell collapsing apart particle by particle before scattering into the endless void around them.
Even the six stones embedded within him crumbled apart afterward, stripped of all structure the moment Luke decided they no longer mattered.
Tony watched it happen in silence.
Then he sighed inside the armor.
He had actually been considering using Ultron.
Of course the plan failed immediately.
Even Tony Stark could not predict dealing with something like this. Genius only worked when reality still followed understandable systems, and Luke had clearly moved far beyond that point.
Tony slowly looked back toward him.
"Now," he said carefully, "why don't we talk this out?"
Luke stared at him silently.
Tony continued anyway.
"I'm pretty sure having an actual genius on your side wouldn't hurt," he said. "I mean, look at this place. You clearly understand destructive power, but strategic intelligence?" He lightly pointed toward himself. "That's where I come in."
Luke thought about it for a moment.
Then he nodded slightly.
"Yeah," he said. "You're correct."
Tony blinked once behind the helmet.
That was easier than expected.
Honestly, he had prepared multiple backup arguments already. Manipulation, negotiation, psychological leverage—he expected resistance. Instead Luke agreed almost immediately.
For half a second Tony wondered if he had overcomplicated everything from the start.
Maybe he should have approached him like this earlier and waited for a better chance to betray him afterward.
Then Luke continued.
"I really do want to have a genius head in my hand."
Tony stopped smiling.
Slowly.
Then a massive cannon unfolded behind Tony's armor.
Layer after layer of white nanotech expanded outward into a structure far larger than the armor itself, mechanical rings rotating around a central core while crimson energy gathered inside it.
The surrounding void distorted from the amount of power being compressed into a single point.
Tony fired.
A beam of red-white energy erupted forward, not behaving like conventional plasma or radiation. The particles inside it constantly inverted between matter and antimatter states while quantum annihilation waves collapsed atomic structures on contact.
Even space bent around the attack path.
Tony had designed it specifically for beings with absurd regeneration and durability. If physical destruction failed, this weapon erased the atomic bonds themselves.
And woven beneath the energy pattern was something else.
A frequency identical to the Infinity Stones.
Luke noticed immediately.
The beam reached him—
And vanished.
Luke raised his palm casually and the entire attack disappeared into the black sphere floating at the center of his hand, swallowed without resistance.
But Tony was already gone.
The moment the beam failed, dozens of repulsor constructs unfolded across the void around Luke like a mechanical swarm. Red energy blasts rained toward him from every direction simultaneously, each carrying enough force to vaporize continents.
None of them reached him.
The attacks distorted and vanished the moment they entered the warped space surrounding Luke's body.
Luke slowly looked around at the floating weapons.
"Hmmm…" he said. "You really are a genius."
The golden rings behind him rotated slowly while he examined the fading energy signatures.
"This thing actually could've killed almost anything," Luke admitted. "It even replicated the wavelength patterns of the Infinity Stones."
Far in the distance Tony reappeared through a phase jump, immediately accelerating away while his armor opened dozens of escape calculations at once.
Inside the helmet he was already cursing.
Because even that failed.
The anti-particle annihilation beam should have worked against almost anything in existence. He spent years designing theoretical weapons capable of bypassing cosmic durability.
Then Luke appeared directly in front of Tony.
Before the armor could react, Luke's fist smashed straight through the helmet.
The impact cracked the entire front of the suit apart instantly, white nanotech fragments scattering through the void while Tony himself was blasted backward at extreme speed.
Warning signals exploded across the armor systems.
Tony barely regained control—
Then Luke appeared behind him again.
He raised his leg and drove it straight into Tony's groin with horrifying force.
The hit folded Tony's body instantly inside the armor before he shot forward like a projectile, the suit sparking violently while multiple systems failed at once.
"Yeah," Luke said coldly, "feel the pain, asshole."
Tony nearly blacked out.
Even through layers of advanced armor, pain inhibitors, reinforced kinetic absorption systems, and biological stabilizers—
That still hurt like hell.
"You—psychotic—piece of—shit—" Tony choked out while emergency nanotech desperately repaired the shattered helmet around his face.
Luke walked toward him slowly through the void while the warped space around his body consumed the debris floating nearby.
Tony immediately fired dozens of micro-missiles toward him.
Luke ignored them completely.
The explosions distorted and collapsed inward before reaching him, swallowed by the black sphere embedded in his chest like the attacks never existed at all.
*****
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