"Command received... AI program... shutting... down..."
As Luca issued the command, Friday's voice over the speakers grew fainter until it vanished completely.
Of course, Friday was just an auxiliary AI the Skrulls had hijacked later on; the station itself didn't stop functioning just because the program went offline.
But without that "high wall" of digital defense, breaching the station's internal systems was a walk in the park for Luca.
Still, Luca hadn't expected Tony to leave such a massive backdoor for him within his own AI.
Sure, in the grand scheme of this Skrull incident, this backdoor didn't exactly turn the tide of the battle. But thinking back, if Luca had managed to trigger this hidden clause with Friday face-to-face earlier, it could have saved them a lot of headaches during the operation.
"That guy Tony... he really is something."
Watching the system go dark, Luca shook his head with a smile and floated into the detention center.
He ignored the tail end of the battle happening outside. He messed around with the console for a moment, terminating the memory-reading process.
Looking at the human captives still unconscious in their stasis pods, Luca decided to make the evacuation easier. He pulled out his [Dehydration Gun] again and started spraying the pods.
In moments, the room was littered with blue cubes.
However, when it came to Tony and the other Avengers, Luca carefully separated their cubes from the rest.
By the time he walked out of the detention center carrying two sacks—one large, one small—filled with compressed cubes, the battle outside was over.
Ignoring the Skrull corpses littering the corridor, Luca handed the sacks to Natasha, who had just managed to calm Hulk down.
"Here. The small bag has Tony and the team. The big one has the other captives. There are probably a few superpowered villains mixed in there too. When you get back and start unzipping... er, decompressing them, make sure you have security on standby. Sort them out carefully so we don't have another incident."
Hearing Luca's casual tone, Natasha took the sacks with a weird expression.
She knew Luca had some kind of compression technology, but holding a bag full of living people still felt surreal.
"I'm taking these... taking them back? What about you?"
She hefted the sacks carefully, terrified of dropping one and losing a teammate.
"You guys go first. Someone has to stay behind and clean up this mess."
Without giving Natasha a chance to argue, Luca signaled Spot to reopen the portal and waved for them to leave.
Natasha looked at Luca for a moment, then led the team—and the bagged Tony—through the inky black portal.
Banner, having just reverted from his Hulk form, mumbled hesitantly.
"Luca, not all the Skrulls are necessarily..."
Banner wanted to say that not all Skrulls were bad people. But before he could finish, Gwen stepped forward, gave Luca a hug, and whispered sadly.
"Don't carry it all yourself."
Feeling the warmth of Gwen's embrace, Luca gently patted her back. Neither said anything more.
Once everyone was back on Earth and the portal closed, Luca didn't linger.
The Skrull space station had fallen into an eerie silence.
Luca knew there were still plenty of Skrulls hiding in the dark corners of the station—those who had given up or were hoping to ambush him.
He didn't bother hunting them down one by one. Instead, he activated Quicksilver's ability.
Moving at superspeed, he swept through the key areas of the station.
After finding only two "glowing items" of value, he packed up the damaged Super Skrull machine and the related data.
Then, he returned to his Boxer Gundam and flew out of the station.
Floating in the vacuum of space, looking at the silent metal fortress, Luca's eyes were cold inside the cockpit.
"A dangerous variable like the Skrulls... is better off disappearing."
Even though the Skrulls had occupied it, this station was built with Nick Fury's massive budget. Luca knew that even if he claimed rights to it, Fury would never let him keep such a strategic asset.
Rather than letting a dangerous weapon hang over his head—or return to Fury's control—it was better to burn it all down. Let it be a tomb for the Skrulls.
Luca didn't consider himself a radical racist. But honestly, he didn't even care that much about the lives of random Americans; why would he have any mercy for a potential plague like the Skrulls?
Inside the cockpit, Luca pressed a button.
On the Boxer Gundam's right arm, the "Overture" mechanical arm—based on the Devil May Cry design—flashed blue and dissolved into particles.
In its place, a new arm materialized. It was red and white, slightly bulkier than the original.
Click-clack.
The new arm locked into the socket.
[Gerbera GP01]. Also based on a Devil May Cry Devil Breaker, but adapted for the Gundam.
Its basic function was just shooting shockwaves for knockback or mid-air maneuvering, so Luca rarely used it.
But its charged attack was a different story...
"Beam Cannon, charging!"
At Luca's command, the massive Boxer Gundam raised its new right arm, aiming at the station in the distance.
The Gundam's left hand grabbed the right wrist for support.
The mechanical palm of the red and white arm opened wide, the fingers retracting inward. Armor plates on the forearm flared open, forming a large ring that acted like a focusing lens.
Blue-white particles began to gather frantically inside the ring. In the blink of an eye, the raw, violent energy caused the entire Gundam to shudder.
Inside the cockpit, holding his [Quincy Cross], a cold light flashed in Luca's eyes.
"Fire!"
BOOM!
A torrent of energy, yards wide, erupted from the arm.
The blue-white beam pierced through the Skrull station instantly. The blinding blue light was so intense it swallowed the orange fire of the explosions triggering inside the station.
But!
This wasn't just a simple piercing shot.
With a roar that vibrated through the silent vacuum, the beam sustained its output. Luca swung the Gundam's arm.
Like a colossal lightsaber slashing across the galaxy, the beam sliced the massive space station cleanly in half at the waist.
BOOM!
In the silent cosmos, that brilliant blue slash swept the station—and the Skrulls inside—into the dustbin of history.