[The chaos in the control room erupted. As guards aimed their weapons at Groot, Drax, who had been watching silently, finally acted.]
[With a battle roar, he charged, slamming one guard aside. He snatched the rifle from another before the man could aim and used it as a club to knock him over. A third guard aimed, but Drax hurled the stolen rifle with perfect accuracy, dropping him instantly.]
[He moved like a storm of destruction—a kick here, a flying leap there. He caught one guard by the shoulder, using him as an anchor to deliver a brutal kick to another. A guard landed a heavy punch on his chest, but Drax didn't even flinch. He simply stared the man down with contempt before knocking him senseless with a headbutt.]
[Hoisting the guard he still held high into the air, he smashed him to the ground, taking him out of the fight for good.]
[Drax scooped up a fallen guard's heavy-duty rifle. "Creature!" he bellowed, tossing the weapon across the room to Rocket.]
[Rocket snatched it out of the air, his eyes widening with glee as he inspected the hardware. "Oh, yeah!"]
[He immediately opened fire on the swarming security drones as Groot let out a supportive roar. Under Rocket's expert aim, the first wave of drones was quickly obliterated, but more were already streaming in as reinforcements.]
[Meanwhile, Peter Quill darted to a cell, confronting a disgruntled inmate. "I need your leg!" he demanded.]
[The inmate stared back, utterly baffled. "My leg? What for?"]
[In the corridor, Gamora was a blur of green motion, dodging a hail of energy blasts. A guard with a stun baton lunged; she sidestepped gracefully and brought him down with a single, precise chop to the neck. She followed with a spinning kick that knocked a second guard unconscious.]
[When a third guard opened fire, she twisted her body, letting the bolts fly past. Another guard with a shield and baton tried to pin her, but a powerful front kick sent his shield clattering away. She disarmed the shooter with another kick before catching the arm of the baton-wielding guard, trapping him.]
[After knocking the shooter to the ground again, she wrapped her legs around the other guard's arm, applying pressure until he screamed in agony.]
["The control band!" she demanded. "Hand it over!"]
["Never!" the guard spat through gritted teeth.]
["Fine," Gamora said coldly, applying more force. "We'll do this the hard way." Another pained shriek echoed down the hall.]
[Just as Quill emerged from the cell with the prosthetic leg, a guard rounded the corner and leveled a rifle at him. "Put the leg down! Get back in your cell!"]
[Quill made a show of slowly lowering the prosthetic, then suddenly swung it upwards, knocking the rifle aside before bringing it down hard on the guard's helmet. He snatched the fallen gun, blew away an approaching drone, and ran toward Rocket's position with the leg tucked under his arm.]
[By now, Rocket's gun was empty, and he and Groot were being overwhelmed. "Rocket!" Gamora shouted, appearing from above.]
[Rocket dropped his useless rifle and caught the control bracelet she threw down.]
["The guard tower!" she yelled.]
[Groot immediately began moving. As he did, Rocket swiftly connected the control band to a power cell he'd acquired, his paws a blur of motion.]
[Gamora took a running start, leaped from the railing, and easily cleared the massive gap to land on the walkway leading to the tower. Quill followed, a gun in one hand and the prosthetic leg in the other.]
[Groot extended his arms, lifting Rocket to the upper level to join Gamora. Quill tossed aside his empty gun and began to climb Groot, whose body sprouted branch-like handholds to form a living ladder.]
[Halfway up, a drone appeared directly in front of him, its weapon glowing. Quill's heart froze, but before the drone could fire, Drax launched himself from the side, tackling the machine and dragging it down to the ground.]
[The drone fired wildly as it fell. If Drax had been a second slower, Quill would have been torn to shreds.]
[With a furious roar, Drax ripped the drone in half.]
[He then looked up at Quill. "You! The man who lay with the tentacled woman!"]
[Clearly, Drax's method for remembering people was unique.]
[Star-Lord just rolled his eyes and kept climbing. "It was one time!"]
[Drax grunted and began to climb after him.]
"Oh man, Quill has to be exhausted," Harry Osborn remarked with a dry chuckle. "He's probably thinking, 'Note to self: never, ever overshare with the big, literal-minded guy again.'"
Beside him, 2nd gen Peter Parker burst into laughter. The scene was hilariously familiar. It reminded him of Harry's own tendency to boast about his flings with various models during his time in France. Thanks to the System's broadcast, Harry's entire romantic history was now public knowledge, an irony that wasn't lost on Peter.
Of course, Tony Stark had faced far more public scrutiny over his love life, but the difference was, he reveled in it. Playboy? He'd practically built his brand around the term and was anything but ashamed of his reputation. A little public call-out was nothing to him.
But as the chaotic prison break unfolded on screen, Tony's amusement gave way to professional curiosity. From an engineering standpoint, the defense of the Kyln prison seemed… unimpressive.
Sure, there were a lot of drones, but they were flimsy. At best, they were on par with his standard Iron Legion models, and they certainly couldn't hold a candle to the custom energy-based units he'd prototyped for emergencies. And they were absolutely nothing compared to the drones he'd constructed using salvaged Dark Elf materials. Those specialized units were nearly indestructible, capable of withstanding the intense heat of volcanic plumes. If the Kyln had been defended by those drones, Star-Lord and his crew wouldn't have made it ten feet. Rocket could have emptied a hundred clips and not even scratched the paint.
An escape would have been impossible unless their alien firearms packed a serious punch, with munitions several orders of magnitude more powerful than anything found on Earth. Only then could they hope to damage the super-dense alloys.
Setting aside his critique of the prison's shoddy security, Tony found himself genuinely interested in Rocket. He hadn't expected the talking raccoon to be a tactical genius, but the little creature had effortlessly analyzed the prison's structural weaknesses and orchestrated a complex, multi-stage escape plan on the fly. He was a natural leader, somehow wrangling a team of volatile misfits who had literally just met into a cohesive—if chaotic—unit. He was an engineer, a strategist, and a crack shot all rolled into one furry, aggressive package. Tony couldn't help but be impressed.