"Luca! Luca!"
Luca looked out the window, and everything outside looked like a nightmare.
Even though he had seen some crazy things in his previous life, Luca couldn't help but feel a surge of fear in the face of an alien invasion.
However, the nervous cries of his parents from downstairs quickly snapped him back to reality, making him realize he had to do something.
Before Luca could even respond to their calls... a bright purple beam of light shot straight toward their house!
The next moment—
"BOOM—"
A violent explosion sent Luca flying instantly.
The entire building shook violently under the blast.
As Luca's body slammed into the wardrobe behind him, the first thing he felt wasn't the pain from the impact... instead, Luca mostly felt a loud buzzing noise in his ears and a dizzying wave of nausea that flooded his mind.
In a daze, Luca braced himself against the fallen desk beside him and struggled to stand upright.
Looking up, the first thing he saw was a giant hole in the wall of his apartment.
The explosion had blown open a huge hole that went through both floors of their home, and nearly half of the second floor had collapsed down into the first.
The thick stench of gunpowder choked his mouth and nose with chunks of brick, and debris kept falling all around him.
Luca still couldn't hear very well, but he didn't care about the dust in his mouth. He quickly shouted as loud as he could for his parents.
"Mom! Dad?! Are you okay?!"
But no matter how loudly Luca called out, there was no response from the rubble of the ruined house.
Even though he was someone who had just taken over the real Luca's memories and wasn't super close to his parents, he still didn't want anything bad to happen to them.
'There was no time to think further.'
Luca quickly opened the wardrobe behind him, pulled out his backpack, and slung it over his shoulder.
Then, he slid down the slanted floor that had collapsed, heading straight downstairs.
As soon as he reached downstairs, Luca found himself surrounded by a mess.
The house was completely destroyed.
He didn't even have time to start looking for his parents when he saw two Chitauri climbing through the massive hole in the wall, charging straight at him.
Luca wanted to pull a 'Pencil Missile' out of his backpack or turn on his 'Power-Enhancing Kick Shoes' to fight back, but…
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
Two loud gunshots rang out from behind him.
The next instant, the heads of the two Chitauri in front of him burst like watermelons, with flesh and fluid splattering everywhere.
As the two headless corpses collapsed to the ground, Luca finally turned around.
There, in the middle of the wreckage, his mom, Gina, was lying at the edge of a broken door. She was using all her strength to hold herself up and look at him.
In her hand was a prototype high-powered gun still in the experimental stage, developed by their own company.
"Mom! Where's Dad?"
Luca rushed forward, kneeling beside her to support her trembling body.
It was only then that Luca noticed that her entire lower body was still pinned beneath a collapsed section of wall.
Fortunately, the fallen wall had landed at a slight angle against other debris, creating a narrow gap.
That little gap kept her from being crushed completely.
But on the other side of the rubble, Luca's father, Herman, had also been hit by falling stones and debris...
After he reached out to check, Luca found that he was no longer breathing. He didn't even stop to listen to what his mom was saying.
Luca immediately bent down and threw himself into action, trying to lift the slab of wall pressing down on her.
However, the mechanical prosthetic arm he'd only recently been provided with was nothing like the military-grade arm of the Winter Soldier.
In fact, it wasn't even as strong as a normal person's right arm. There was no way he could lift such a huge slab of stone.
"Luca! Luca! Listen to me! You take this gun—your father and I taught you how to use it!"
"You don't have to worry about me and find somewhere to hide! The storage room in the house is specially reinforced—stay there! Don't come out, no matter what!"
Seeing Luca struggle in vain to lift the slab, Gina, still dazed and only just regaining consciousness after the explosion, spoke quickly as she watched Luca struggle to move the heavy stone.
Luca looked down at the oddly shaped pistol being thrust into his hands.
It was only now that he noticed the faint, glowing white light emanating from it with the same glow unique to "core components."
But instead of immediately grabbing the pistol, the glow sparked something in his mind.
'The Power-Enhancing Kick Shoes.. maybe they don't just enhance short bursts of strength!'
That thought flashed through his mind like lightning.
Luca immediately crouched down and twisted the white dial on the outer side of his right shoe with his left hand.
In the next instant, a visible arc of electricity flickered across the red-and-white sneaker, and his entire right foot began to glow.
As a surge of unusual strength coursed through his leg, Luca carefully slid the toe of his shoe into a hole in the rubble.
Then, he slowly pushed with his leg.
The collapsed wall, which he hadn't been able to move even an inch with all his strength before, now lifted easily under the tremendous force of a single leg.
Even as he raised it, Luca barely felt any pressure or discomfort on the top of his foot, and his left foot seemed to grip the ground more effectively, helping him stay balanced.
Gina stared in shock.
"BOOM!"
The huge slab of rubble was suddenly thrown to the side like it was nothing.
Then, Luca wrapped his arms around his mother and pulled her away from the spot.
"Luca? What was that?"
Still shaken but no longer dazed, Gina stared blankly at the giant chunk of debris her son had just thrown aside with a single foot.
Luca could only respond with a slightly awkward and vague answer:
"It's just... a little invention of mine."
He didn't even know how to explain something like a "system," so he decided to keep it simple.
Anyway, he chose to brush it off casually and prepared to help his mother to the storage room she had mentioned earlier for safety.
But before Luca could even help her take more than a few steps... a figure in red-and-gold armor came hurtling down from the sky.
He flew right through the big hole in the wall and landed in the house with a loud sound!
The already broken floor cracked even more, and the armored person slid across the ground, kicking up dust and stones.
He only stopped when he slid right up to where Luca and his mom were standing.
Seeing Iron Man drop out of the sky so suddenly, they both pulled out their weapons and pointed them at the figure lying on the ground.
Gina drew the prototype handgun developed by her company.
Luca pulled out the 'Pencil Missile' he'd stashed in his backpack earlier.
"Oh~ easy there, ma'am! I don't think this counts as breaking and entering… right?"
Despite having two weapons pointed at him, Tony Stark didn't seem scared at all. He slowly stood up, looking a bit messy but calm.
However, the electronically synthesized voice coming through his helmet's audio system still sounded cold and hard to understand.
After noticing this, Iron Man's golden helmet clicked open, revealing Tony Stark's face underneath as he continued trying to calm the tense mother and son.
"Relax, you two. Find somewhere safe to hide as soon as possible. Trust me, those fake Predator wannabes outside won't last much longer~"
Then Tony winked at Luca and flashed what he probably thought was a charming smile.
"And kid—next time, remember... a pencil case won't protect you."
Afterwards, the metal helmet slid shut once more.
Iron Man immediately turned around, and fire blasted from his hands and feet as he flew straight back out through the giant hole in the wall.
However...
"BOOM—!"
A violent explosion rang out.
Iron Man had just flown about two meters out of the house when...
ZAP!
A laser beam hit him right in the face!
BOOM!
A big explosion of fire and force blasted him backwards.
In the blink of an eye, Iron Man came flying back even faster than he had left—spinning and crashing hard onto the ground, right in front of Luca and Gina again.
Then, a lot of floating Chitauri Chariots soared into view outside the house. Each one hovered in the air, and two or three Chitauri stood on each Chitauri Chariot.
Now, more than ten Chitauri Staff were all pointing straight at the big hole in the wall pointed straight at them.
Luca and Gina were both shocked by the explosion. They quickly covered their faces to block the flying dust and tiny rocks.
Then, almost in perfect unison, they raised their weapons again, aiming them at the Chitauri hovering just outside their damaged home.
"BANG!"
Gina was the first to fire, blasting the head off one of the Chitauri "pilots" with a single precise shot.
Luca was a little slower than his mom, still holding his 'Pencil Missile.'
Suddenly, the sides of his pencil case popped open, revealing rows of missile-shaped projectiles designed to look like actual pencils.
At the same time, a part of the pencil case flipped out underneath and in front, turning into a handle and a barrel, just like a real gun.
Luca gripped the handle with his left hand and didn't even bother to aim. He just pointed the 'Pencil Missile' at all the enemies and swept it across the air.
"Beep!"
"Beep!"
"Beep!"
Without hesitation, Luca pulled the trigger rapidly.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh~"
A lot of pencil missiles blasted off, leaving trails of smoke behind them. They flew through the air like twisting snakes, each one heading for a different enemy.
In the blink of an eye, every single Chitauri soldier was hit.
However, the expected violent explosions didn't follow.
Instead, the moment the missiles struck, they burst into massive splashes of sticky adhesive fluid, covering them from head to toe.
They were now blinded and completely immobilized by the fluid and could no longer control their vehicles.
The hovercrafts began swaying erratically, one by one crashing down toward the ground.
"What the hell...?"