Marvel: The Imposter Inventor

Chapter 7 A Reckless Decision

Luca, who was upstairs, naturally didn't hear the conversation of the departing group, but at the moment, his mind wasn't on them either.

Even though those people seemed to radiate a white light that belonged to the 'core components' in Luca's eyes.

Captain America's shield, Iron Man's nanotech armor core and glasses, Ant-Man's suit, and even the Hulk's shorts, etc.

All of this was suggesting to Luca that items belonging to characters connected to the plot were more likely to become 'core components'.

But at this moment he was in no mood to care about any of that, and his face was extremely pale.

It's because he himself never expected that this place would actually be the unfortunate timeline that Tony Stark and his team traveled to in the Avengers: Endgame storyline.

Why is this called the 'unlucky timeline'?
We should go back to Luca, who had just finished watching the American TV series "Loki" before he time-traveled.

The series, a spin-off of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, begins because Iron Man and his friends in Avengers: Endgame wanted to borrow the Infinity Stones from that point in time to save their world.

An unexpected event occurred midway, and the Tesseract, also known as the Space Stone, ended up in Loki's hands at this point in time.

Loki escaped with the Tesseract, causing a historical deviation, and was captured by an organization called TVA (Time Mutation Administration).

The purpose of this organization, TVA, is to protect the so-called 'sacred timeline' and ensure that everything unfolds according to a predetermined trajectory.

However, Loki's departure and the subsequent events in the TVA were not important to Luca.

Importantly, there was a scene in the series that left a very deep impression on Luca.

That is, at the beginning, after Loki was captured by the TVA, those people directly placed a 'time clipping bomb' in this timeline, which completely destroyed this 'biased' timeline.

Yes, the entire timeline was wiped out!
When Luca first watched the show, he even complained about it to his friends.

When Bruce Banner borrowed the Time Stone from the Ancient One, he confidently assured her that they would return it and that it wouldn't affect the course of the world. However, Loki took the Space Stone, and Iron Man and Captain America went to 1970 to obtain a new Tesseract. Ironically, this entire timeline was destroyed.

I wonder who Captain America returned the other two Infinity Stones to when he came back in the end.

Although Marvel's 'parallel universes,' 'timelines,' and 'time branches' are inherently confusing and chaotic, Luca and his friends spent a long time discussing it but still couldn't come to a conclusion.

But would Luca dare to take such a gamble?

He bet that the timeline of Avengers: Endgame was created by the Avengers, but Loki didn't take the Tesseract.

Or is it that you're betting that your existence is a special parallel universe, unaffected by TVA, thus preventing the entire timeline from being cut off?

Luca's expression grew increasingly grim as he thought about it.

'If we're talking about affecting the timeline, then wouldn't my existence count as affecting the timeline? I haven't been captured yet, does that mean the Time Mutation Management Bureau doesn't exist in this world?'

'No! I have to go check! No! I have to stop Loki!'

Luca clearly remembered that after Loki picked up the Tesseract, he was teleported directly to Mongolia, where he was captured by the TVA agents, who then dropped a time-cutting bomb before leaving.

If that's the case, then I won't even be able to stop it or confirm it when the time comes, and I can only wait for the final verdict in fear.

Instead of gambling on that possibility, it would be better to stop Loki at the source.

With this in mind, Luca immediately gave up waiting at home for the Battle of New York to end and quickly checked his equipment.

After thinking for a moment, he moved his mother, Gina, to the storage room and settled her in. He then left a note and immediately went out.

Heading towards Stark Tower.

In fact, the streets outside didn't seem nearly as dangerous as Luca had imagined.

By this time, large numbers of National Guard troops had taken to the streets, with armed pickup trucks and heavily armed soldiers drawing away much of the Chitauri fire. Although the fighting remained difficult, it created space for New York police officers and firefighters to evacuate civilians.

If it weren't for the Chitauri continuously pouring out of that hole in the sky, New York might actually have been able to hold out with its current military strength.

Of course, this may also be because the heavily armed Chitauri airships and Leviathan warships focused their main targets on the Avengers members.

In short, Luca, an ordinary civilian, was so inconspicuous on the street that he was almost taken away by the police who were evacuating the crowd and taken to the subway station next door several times.

However, such good fortune obviously cannot last forever.

As Luca got closer to Stark Tower, the Chitauri soldiers around him became increasingly dense.

If it weren't for the fear in his heart that he might mysteriously disappear along with the entire timeline, Luca might have already given up.

"Whoosh~"

A rectangular grenade, shaped like a walkie-talkie, streaked across the sky and landed with a clatter in front of an armored off-road vehicle.

Immediately afterwards, there was a loud 'boom'.

An eerie blue flash of light erupted, and the armored vehicle, along with more than a dozen soldiers around it, was blown away on the spot.

Luca, hiding behind an overturned bus, didn't even bother to glance at it.

What I was thinking about was...

'That Chitauri grenade seemed to have a synthetic white glow on it? It just exploded and disappeared. I don't know if I was seeing things.'

Just as Luca was preparing to hide behind the bus for a while longer, waiting for the Chitauri to leave before sneaking forward.

Suddenly, a violent explosion came from above.

Large chunks of rock crashed down from the sky, dragging several Zeta Swiss soldiers who had been desperately climbing toward the roof with them.

Fortunately, Luca's [Strength Enhancement Shoes] were always on the lowest setting.

Upon hearing the explosion overhead, he quickly pushed off with his feet and darted towards a nearby shop.

There was a 'crash' sound.

The glass was shattered.

The prosthetic right arm scraped and bumped against the ground.

Luca rolled twice before finally managing to steady himself against a shelf.

Immediately afterwards, there were several loud thuds as heavy objects crashed to the ground.

The Chitauri who had fallen from the sky earlier all crashed to the ground, and it was clear that none of them were going to survive.

Luca glanced at it and breathed a slight sigh of relief.

'Luckily I dodged it quickly~'

However, at that moment, a low growl that sounded somewhat fierce but actually cowardly came from behind him.

"Kid! Get out of here!"

(End of this chapter)