"Begin scanning, Woz."
Leaning against a frost-covered door pillar, Lothar gave the order. This wartime command base was too large for him to bother searching on foot for Astra's exact location.
"Understood, Prince Lothar." The azure-hued mechanical feline twisted its rotund body, eyes gleaming as they locked onto the towering structure before them. Twin beams of scanning light emitted from its eyes, sweeping across every frozen corner of the fortress, matching its findings against the database to locate Astra's facial signature.
"Target acquired."
A translucent blue holographic screen materialized before Lothar, displaying a rapidly shifting array of red markers. He frowned.
"What's going on?"
"Prince Lothar, some Kree soldiers appear to possess devices that neutralize frost magic. Aside from Astra, twenty-nine Kree remain unaffected. Cross-referencing with our database, they are all identified as high-ranking officials of Torfa."
As Woz finished speaking, the projection expanded, presenting the faces of all thirty unaffected Kree. Among the sea of blue-skinned warriors, a few bore distinct hues. For convenience, Woz prominently displayed Astra's portrait in the top-left corner, highlighted in bold red.
"Where are they heading?"
Observing the clustering of red markers, Lothar followed their trajectory while instructing Woz to continue the report.
"They're moving toward a communications hub. They're trying to break through Woz's signal jamming to contact the outside world," Woz replied dutifully.
"Futile resistance." Lothar retracted Woz's holographic display into his wrist device and looked up at the icy crystals glistening under the sunlight.
Clenching his fists, power surged within him, and a sudden, violent burst of energy erupted at his feet.
Boom!
His knees bent slightly before he launched himself skyward. His body shot toward the designated location like a spear, smashing through layers of solid ice and reinforced structures. Fragments of shattered buildings and frozen debris rained down as he tore through every obstacle in his path.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The sheer force of his impact obliterated everything barring his way. As Lothar burst into the communications room Woz had identified, he found himself staring down a sea of ominous, black gun barrels.
"Oh? Waiting for me?"
Closing the holographic map before him, Lothar smirked, amused by the sight of the armed Kree warriors standing against him.
"Open fire!"
The Kree soldiers wasted no time. The air filled with the roar of plasma bolts as torrents of fiery projectiles surged toward Lothar, engulfing his figure.
Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Clang…
A relentless barrage of energy shots ricocheted harmlessly off his body. Not a single round managed to inflict even the slightest wound.
"Increase firepower!" their leader commanded, unwilling to believe their weapons were useless. But what followed was the harrowing realization of their utter helplessness.
"Naïve."
Lothar snapped the last remaining rifle in his grasp, its metallic frame crumpling like paper. As he stood amid a floor littered with bodies, he reactivated his holographic interface. The red markers on the map had dwindled dramatically—some were still approaching the communications hub, while others seemed to have abandoned the fight entirely.
"Prince Lothar, we've intercepted transmissions from the Kree military. They've realized something is amiss after losing contact with Torfa's command center," Woz promptly informed him.
"I expected as much." Without hesitation, Lothar raised his right hand toward the massive communication arrays. Energy surged from his palm, obliterating the facility's external connections entirely.
A chain reaction of explosions sent tremors across the battlefield. Every Kree soldier still standing turned pale as realization dawned—
With their comms destroyed, the city had become an isolated fortress.
"His objective is clear. He wants to sever all contact between us and the outside world," muttered Kristorr, the head of security for Torfa's research division, his expression grim.
The Skrulls had played their hand masterfully. First, Magar had humiliated him—defeating him in combat and assuming his identity. Now, their enemy had turned the city into a trapped, frozen wasteland.
"They won't hold out for long. The reinforcements from Hala are almost here, and the city's defense forces should have noticed something's wrong by now. We just have to hold on until they arrive. Just a little longer…"
"Stop fooling yourself, Kristorr. You know as well as I do—right now, we can't trust anyone."
Astra sat slouched on the floor, puffing on a smoke stick. With a loud clank, he dropped a heavy plasma launcher beside him, shrouding himself in a haze of curling smoke. "Who knows whether we'll be greeted by the Kree military… or a Skrull invasion force? You remember the tragedy of L77, don't you?"
At the mention of L77, Astra's usually fierce expression darkened. His grip on the cannon's handle tightened involuntarily.
"Let's go. Since the communications center is destroyed, we should retreat outside. Freezing an entire city—there's no way the Skrulls did that without some specialized device. Otherwise, it would've been impossible."
Kristorr hesitated before finally standing, extending a hand toward Astra.
"Go if you want. Don't forget, until I return to Hala, I can't leave the command center or the research facility for too long. Without the special magnetic fields shielding me, the Skrulls could easily extract my memories."
Kristorr frowned at the smoke curling around Astra. He never cared for the scent.
"Want one? Local specialty from H91. Packs a punch."
Astra smirked, tossing a spare stick toward Kristorr. A liquor bottle rolled from his satchel in the process.
Kristorr opened his mouth but ultimately swallowed his words. After securing the item, he cast Astra one last glance before leaping from the window.
"Hope you're still in one piece when we meet again."
Astra dusted himself off and shouldered his plasma cannon, heading toward the ruined communications hub.
After all, he was a bona fide scientist blessed—or perhaps cursed—by the cosmos. If the damage to the hub wasn't too severe, he could fix it.
"Let's get moving, old friend."
Rounding a corner, Astra suddenly halted. A stranger stood in his path.
The figure's silver armor shimmered in the searing sunlight, while jet-black hair swayed as if caught in an unseen breeze. A crimson tail flicked side to side.
"I don't know who you are," Astra mused, hoisting his cannon onto his shoulder and biting down on his smoke stick. "But you sure as hell aren't Kree."
Taking aim, he grinned. "Ever tasted a plasma blast? If not, you're in for a treat."
"You can try."
Lothar turned to face him, a wild smirk stretching across his lips, irritating Astra instantly.
"Interesting. How about a bet? I wager that you die."
Astra whistled, squeezing the trigger.
Lothar chuckled. "I bet your gun… has no bullets."
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