Fury had a very strange trust in Luke, especially when the two of them found themselves aligned on the same side.

On the entire Earth, apart from Sharon and Wanda, it could be said that no one knew Luke better than Nick Fury.

They had crossed paths too many times, their exchanges marked by both irritation and begrudging cooperation. And through all of it, Fury had seen enough to know one truth: Luke was different.

Not just powerful. Not just unpredictable. He was weird in ways that even Fury's extensive files and instincts could not fully explain.

That strangeness should have been unsettling. But instead, it brought a kind of reassurance. Because when Luke was around, the impossible, be it good or bad, was guaranteed to happen.

So even when facing the terrifying army of Thanos, Fury's expression remained strangely calm. His eye narrowed slightly, watching the storm gather on the horizon.

That calmness rolled off him like a tide, washing over the people standing behind him. Phil Coulson and Maria Hill, both pale and tense, found their racing hearts steadying as they followed Fury's gaze.

In front of the towering S.H.I.E.L.D. windows, all eyes fixed on the quiet young man standing behind the Avengers.

Luke.

In that moment, his slight frame seemed taller. His presence silent yet commanding, stretched across the battlefield like a shadow.

…

On the battlefield.

The endless horde of Thanos's vanguard slammed forward like a black tide. Buildings shook. The ground quivered under the stampede of clawed feet and monstrous roars.

From a distance, Thanos stood tall, like an emperor overseeing a gladiatorial spectacle. His posture was relaxed, his eyes cold, his face carved in stone. There wasn't a single ripple of emotion in him.

These so-called Avengers, he had no intention of wasting thought on them. To him, they were gnats before the inevitable.

The corner of his mouth even lifted, faintly amused. But then… his gaze caught on something.

A boy. A young man behind the Avengers, smiling.

Not the nervous smile of mortals who pretend at courage. No, the smile of someone who knew he was in control, who carried certainty as casually as a blade.

For the first time, Thanos blinked.

"…Hn?" His low voice was barely audible, but his expression shifted.

Luke's smile was too conspicuous, too wrong here. Everyone else wore masks of tension, even dread. Yet he smiled openly, almost playful.

And something about it struck Thanos with an odd familiarity. He himself had worn that same expression countless times.

The smile of inevitability.

Luke noticed the Mad Titan staring. His lips curved wider, as though the two shared some private joke across the battlefield.

For Luke, Thanos with only two Infinity Stones was no cause for fear. If the Gauntlet had already been completed, perhaps then he would have exercised more caution.

But now? This wasn't enough to make him fear. This was an opportunity.

And if Thanos had brought an army, Luke decided, it was time to bring his.

He raised one hand, almost lazily, and flicked it outward.

The air rippled. Space itself bent and several massive concentric distortions tore open behind him like windows to another world.

The ground trembled as if welcoming something vast and ancient.

The first to step out were Bumblebee and Doggo.

Doggo padded forward, claws striking the pavement, each step causing his body to swell and shift. Flesh rippled, bones cracked, muscles tore and reformed. In a handful of breaths, he towered above them all, transformed into a monstrous three-headed beast.

But unlike the Cerberus of myth, his form was painted in unnatural colors.

The right head gleamed bright yellow, streaked with oily slicks of Phage. The left head radiated sickly green, veins bulging with the fury of Hulk's genes. The central head, pitch black, smoldered with hellfire so intense it smoked from its jaws. Across his titanic shoulders, glowing red veins pulsed with Extremis, like molten cracks in volcanic stone.

He was grotesque and magnificent all at once, an abomination designed for war.

Beside him, Bumblebee rose. His chassis split and rotated as plates reformed into his humanoid mode. Unlike before, his entire body glowed with a deep crimson light.

Set into his chest, the Reality Stone pulsed like a living heart, bleeding impossible light.

For the first time, Thanos's eyes sharpened.

'The Reality Stone.'

The hunger in him stirred. If he could pry it from that machine's chest and fit it into his Gauntlet, his path to destiny would accelerate.

Yet curiosity tempered his greed. A machine wielding an Infinity Stone? The Titan had scoured worlds, but even he had rarely encountered such a fusion of life and artifice.

Bumblebee lifted one arm. Light rippled from him in waves, crimson bending the very air.

The portals behind him shuddered and out stepped giants.

One after another, seven massive Transformers emerged, each forged from S.H.I.E.L.D. quinjets using the Reality Stone's power. They stood taller than Bumblebee himself, bristling with heavy weapons that gleamed in the fractured daylight.

Each footfall was like thunder, shaking the ground as they aligned behind Luke like an iron phalanx.

The Avengers stared, jaws slack, then slowly their fear shifted into something else. Hope.

Yes, Luke was on their side, so the stronger he revealed himself to be, the better their odds.

Even Steve Rogers, who had his doubts about Luke, allowed a small exhale of relief.

Thanos's smirk faltered.

The robots, he could see it plainly, were weapons of immense destructive potential. They could cut swaths through his vanguard. A thousand soldiers might fall under their guns.

But numbers were his ally. A mere handful of war machines would not stop an ocean.

Still… something gnawed at him. A faint itch in the back of his mind, as though the boy hadn't finished yet.

And then he saw it.

From another portal, a massive wolf padded out, larger even than the monstrous three-headed Doggo. Its fur shimmered like oil under the light, and its glowing green eyes pierced the smoke like twin blades. Its presence was suffocating, like a creature ripped straight from the underworld.

And behind it, multiple figures.

One by one, an endless procession of warriors spilled onto the battlefield. Armor dented. Shields scarred. Faces pale as death, yet eyes burning with cold flame.

Undead.

Asgardian warriors long since slain, now marching once more under Hela's command.

The air grew colder. Frost licked the edges of broken pavement. The battlefield itself seemed to groan under the weight of their return.

Thor's eyes went wide, his grip on Stormbreaker tightening. His breath caught in his throat.

"I've fought them before…" he whispered, almost to himself. He remembered the clash in Asgard, the way the dead refused to stay down. And now they were here, in Midgard, his new home.

His sister had unleashed them once more.

Was she fighting on their side? Fighting for Luke? The thought twisted inside him like a blade.

For the first time, Thanos's mask cracked. His expression hardened, the faintest line of a frown tugging at his brow.

He knew these warriors. He had studied Asgard for years, measured their strengths, catalogued their weaknesses. He remembered the whispers of Odin's might, and the terror of his greatest weapon, Hela, the Goddess of Death.

Individually, these soldiers were weak. But together? Unstoppable. Kill them once, they rise again. Kill them a hundred times, they return still.

They were a war without end. And now they were here.

Thanos turned his gaze past the dead army, past the wolf, past the three-headed beast, and fixed on the woman behind Luke.

Her pale face, her black crown, her clothes…

Recognition clicked into place.

Supergiant had shown him a portrait before. Odin's eldest child, the blade of his empire, the Goddess of Death herself.

Hela.

…