CLANG!
Another deafening impact.
The Boxer, curled into its massive metal ball form, was once again swatted away by the flagship's energy shield like a ping-pong ball. It tumbled over a hundred meters down the street before finally unfolding and staggering back to its feet.
In the process, it had probably flattened a dozen brand-new cars and smashed through a couple of storefronts.
The insurance claims after this were going to be a nightmare.
"Hey, Tony! Use that big brain of yours and think of something!"
Luca was frustrated. He distinctly remembered in the movie, this ship was just a giant flying brick. It relied on its hull integrity, and Thor eventually smashed it to pieces with a bit of lightning.
He had underestimated it.
It turns out, in the movie, they just forgot to turn the shields on.
Malekith wasn't making that mistake twice. After retreating to the ship, he'd activated full shielding, turning the vessel into an impenetrable turtle shell.
Luca knew that simply ramming it again wasn't going to work. The kinetic force of a rolling ball wasn't enough to crack that energy barrier.
He turned to the genius billionaire strapped into the cockpit with him.
"Stark! Ideas! Now!"
But Tony wasn't exactly in a thinking mood. Being ragdolled inside a giant metal hamster wheel had turned his stomach upside down.
He was currently fighting the urge to vomit all over the console. That was about the extent of his contribution right now.
Not that it mattered, because things were about to get worse.
The ground began to shake violently. Even inside the heavy mech, Luca struggled to keep his balance.
The massive Harrow ship began to rise.
As it lifted off, the street where it had been embedded cracked and crumbled.
Worse still, panels along the ship's hull slid open, revealing row upon row of ominous, glowing red energy cannons.
It wasn't just trying to leave. It was preparing to glass the city.
"It has shields and that much firepower?" Luca groaned. "Movies are lies!"
"Luca! We have to stop it!" Tony yelled, recovering enough to see the impending doom. His eyes went wide.
"Easy for you to say! Give me a plan!"
With the strength of those shields, Luca doubted even a tactical nuke would scratch the paint. But if those cannons fired? Midtown Manhattan would be a parking lot.
Damn it. If I was piloting Gipsy Danger, I'd just grab that ship and snap it in half.
In the Pacific Rim universe, a Jaeger's sheer mass and nuclear punch could crack that shield. But the Boxer was a fraction of the size—a lightweight scrapper in a heavyweight bout.
Wait. Didn't Gipsy Danger have a move where it fell from the upper atmosphere?
Just as Luca was considering the suicidal idea of trying to drop the mech from orbit, Gwen's voice cut through the comms.
"Luca! Do it again!"
"Huh?"
"Hit it again! Trust me!"
The ship was rising faster now. Gwen's voice was desperate but firm.
Luca didn't have time to argue. "Screw it!"
He engaged the transformation sequence. The Boxer curled back into a ball and began to rev up, spinning in place before launching forward.
As he picked up speed, a streak of red and silver flashed overhead.
Thor, his cape torn in half, was flying parallel to the rolling mech. He held Mjolnir out, eyes locked on the enemy ship with grim determination.
But Thor wasn't the payload.
trailing behind him, tethered by a thick line of webbing, was Gwen. She was surfing through the air, hitched to the God of Thunder like a water skier behind a speedboat.
And in her arms, she clutched a bundle of death.
It was a cluster of over a dozen black hole grenades, webbed together into a single, terrifying package.
Using their own weapons against them?
Luca saw it on his sensors and grinned. He pushed the pedals to the floor. "Let's go!"
He needed to hit that shield the millisecond it weakened.
As they closed in on the rising ship, Thor roared.
"NOW!"
He hurled Mjolnir with everything he had.
The hammer, wreathed in lightning, slammed into the energy shield.
Thunder cracked. The shield rippled and flared under the divine impact, vibrating violently as it absorbed the blow.
And then, before the shield could stabilize, Gwen let go.
The webbed bundle of grenades, glowing with ominous red light, sailed through the air and struck the exact spot Mjolnir had hit.
BOOM-CRACK-SHLOOP.
They detonated all at once.
Over a dozen singularities opened simultaneously, tearing at the fabric of space and the energy shield.
But instead of just eating the shield, the singularities began to eat each other. The gravitational forces compounded, merging into a larger, unstable black hole that distorted light and sound.
CRACK.
The sound was like glass shattering, but louder than a jet engine.
The dark red shield, compromised by the gravitational anomaly, shattered. It peeled away like broken eggshell.
The hull beneath groaned, the metal twisting under the intense gravity.
Even Luca, charging in the mech, felt the tug.
Is that thing gonna eat me too?
The thought flashed through his mind, but luck was on their side. The unstable black hole collapsed on itself as quickly as it had formed, vanishing in a pop of displaced air.
But the shield was down.
And the Boxer was at terminal velocity.
CRASH!!!
The impact was cataclysmic.
Sparks flew. Metal shrieked.
The rolling metal sphere punched straight through the unshielded hull of the alien flagship.
It didn't just dent it. It went through it.
The Boxer exited the other side, leaving a gaping, jagged hole right through the center of the ship.
Cracks spider-webbed out from the impact zone, racing along the length of the vessel. The structural integrity, already compromised by the crash landing and the black hole, failed completely.
The five-hundred-meter-tall monolith groaned.
Then, with a sound like the world ending, it began to tilt.
It was falling. Not away from the city, but sideways—directly toward the ruins of Avengers Tower.
Oh god. That's gonna flatten everything.
Avengers Tower was tall, but this ship was massive. If it hit the ground with full force...
BOOM————!!!
The collision shook the entire island of Manhattan. Dust and debris rose like a mushroom cloud, swallowing the skyline.
The sound drowned out everything. Thoughts, fears, screams—all silenced by the roar of destruction.
But as the dust began to settle, something strange appeared.
Floating in the sky, unaffected by the chaos, was a massive, semi-transparent projection.
It was a figure in green and gold robes, with long black hair, a mischievous smirk, and a ridiculous horned helmet.
"Loki??!"