Luke crushed Sentry's head between both hands.
It went like a watermelon, blood spraying outward into space in every direction, the body going still instantly and drifting in the debris field. Luke grabbed it before it could float away and stored it in inventory.
That would give very good exp.
What remained of the device that had controlled Sentry crackled once, and then Superior Iron Man's voice came through it.
"You are strong, I'll give you that," he said, completely unbothered by what had just happened to his weapon. "But you're no match for me. And you can't escape this universe anyway, so I win regardless."
The device turned to dust.
Luke looked at the particles drifting away from where it had been, turning that over quietly.
The level of confidence. The dimensional blocking. The resources. All of it pointed in one direction.
'So Tony might be the Avatar of Virtuoso.'
"It seems my next enemy won't be easy," he said to nobody.
On Earth, the group stood on the platform looking at a sky that had changed in a way none of them had words for. The sun was still there but something about it was different, dimmer, like something fundamental about it had been resolved.
"My sensors are reading massive infrared signatures across the solar system," Tony's variant said slowly, eyes moving across his display. "Consistent with several planetary bodies having been significantly damaged and the sun having gone supernova and collapsed."
"Yeah," Daniel said, looking up at the sky. "My uncle destroyed most of the solar system. And the sun."
Nobody responded to that immediately. They were getting used to this. That was probably the more concerning development.
Luke appeared on the platform.
"Dealt with that. We should move and find a way out of this universe before anything else decides to show up," he said, already looking toward the horizon.
Then Daniel began to fade.
Just quietly, his edges losing definition, his form becoming less certain, like whatever had been anchoring him to this universe had finished its job and was now politely withdrawing the invitation.
"Looks like my purpose for being here is done," Daniel said, looking at his own hands as they became translucent.
Luke turned and looked at him for a moment. Then extended his hand.
Daniel took it.
"Next time," Daniel said, his voice still clear even as the rest of him continued fading, "let's make it family time. Not this."
"Agreed," Luke said.
Daniel smiled once and disappeared completely, leaving Luke standing on the platform with his hand still extended for a second before he lowered it.
The platform was quiet.
"Your nephew seems like a good kid," Tony said.
"He is," Luke said simply, turning back toward the horizon. "Now let's move."
"So you said earlier it was a variant from another universe controlling that zombie," Tony's variant said. "Who exactly?"
"Superior Iron Man," Luke said.
Tony's variant went quiet for a moment, something shifting behind his eyes.
"Same face, same mind," he said. "But narcissistic to the core. Honestly the most selfish person you will find across any universe." He paused, organizing it.
"In his universe one event changed everything. Flipped the moral value of every hero to its opposite. Good became evil."
"That event was eventually reversed but Tony being Tony, being intelligent and having already tasted what it felt like to operate without any moral restriction, decided he preferred it." He stopped again.
"After that he just kept going. Extremis virus rewritten to give him total control over anyone he infected. Took over San Francisco. Manipulated everyone around him for personal gain. Called it progress."
Both Tonys stood quietly for a moment, processing the version of themselves that had looked at unlimited power and chosen to keep it. Neither of them had words for it immediately, which was unusual for either of them.
"So he's responsible for all of this?" Tony's variant asked, because it hadn't fully landed until now — his device malfunctioning, bringing them here, then stopping working entirely. None of that had been an accident. "He's the reason my device brought us here and stopped working?"
"Yeah," Luke said. "That guy wants me dead, and he dragged all of you along into a universe where everything wants to eat your brain in the process."
"But why?" Natasha asked. "What makes you specifically worth that kind of effort?"
Luke turned to look at her with complete sincerity.
"Maybe he's jealous of my handsome face."
Both Tonys scoffed at exactly the same time, in exactly the same way, which neither of them acknowledged.
"No way," both Tonys said at exactly the same time.
"Can we stop this and find a way back?" Steve said, cutting through it. "I have a bad feeling the more time we spend in this universe the more likely something goes wrong back home."
"That's exactly why we came here," Luke said.
They landed in Kamar-Taj.
Or what remained of it. The buildings were still standing, the architecture intact, which was more than could be said for most of what they had seen in this universe.
Luke looked at the group.
"All of you are going to need patience," he said, already moving toward the entrance. "Because we are about to go through a very large number of books to find a way back to our universe."
Tony opened his mouth.
"A lot of books," Luke confirmed before he could say anything.
*****
A/N: If you'd like to read ahead of the Webnovel release schedule, you can join my Patreon!
The Patreon version is 50 chapters ahead.
👉 patreon.com/Universal_Peace