Before Ulysses could keep talking, an open hand appeared in front of his eyes and, before he could react, it was already gripping his head tightly, slamming him brutally against the wall. The impact embedded him into the metal, leaving a visible dent. He coughed up blood before falling to the ground, clutching his chest as he struggled to breathe.
He had no time to react when a direct kick to the ribs sent him flying backward, puncturing a lung. He tried to scream, but the wound prevented any sound from escaping.
Gravik lifted him by the neck and held him suspended in the air. The expression in his eyes was enough to make Ulysses feel a cold, paralyzing fear. But when he expected the final blow, a green light surrounded him. His wounds began to close rapidly.
Gravik released him indifferently. While Ulysses tried to regain his balance, the Skrull leader spoke in a cold tone.
"I don't need that kind of stupidity. Repeat it and you'll end up worse."
"I... I understand," Ulysses managed to say, steadying his breathing.
"We are under attack. You'd better work, because if you don't..." Gravik did not finish the sentence, but the message was clear.
Even though seeing too much of the future caused an overload that forced him to rest, and in extreme cases could damage his brain, Ulysses began to use his powers immediately.
"The Avengers... Pietro. Nine out of ten times he sacrifices himself for his sister. I recommend focusing the fire on her," he said in a trembling voice.
"Good. Keep watching and tell everything to your guards. They will relay it to the soldiers," Gravik replied.
Ulysses nodded and went to his special room, where a helmet connected directly to his head would allow him to ignore the side effects of his powers.
Despite the inconceivable fear he had felt before Leonardo, as soon as he connected and began to observe the future, his confidence slowly returned.
After all, if he could see the future... how could he lose?
He would soon find out how wrong he was.
---
On the Avengers' front, the trio attacking the Skrulls quickly noticed something strange.
The enemies who had fallen instantly before, barely stronger than ordinary humans, were no longer that simple. The Skrulls were beginning to show superhuman abilities.
The ship, once only a set of metallic corridors, began to deploy new defenses: automatic turrets, lasers, gravity changes, various gases, and more.
Fortunately, almost none of that managed to affect Tony's suits. Gravity manipulation, gas, smoke, or flash and sound grenades were useless. The trio only had to worry about real projectiles, lasers and bullets.
In the middle of the chaos, Wanda was facing a particularly annoying group. They weren't strong, but their abilities made them a nuisance.
Similar to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent called Ghost, they could become intangible. Pietro and Tony couldn't touch them. Only Wanda could hurt them, so she focused all her attention on them.
The Skrulls noticed and began to send more with the same power. Although Wanda needed less than a second to destroy them with her chaos magic, it was enough to keep her busy separating the group.
Suddenly, twenty Skrulls with similar abilities appeared around her, all turning intangible at the same time.
At that moment, without anyone noticing, a gun emerged from the wall, aiming exactly ten centimeters to the right of Wanda's head at that moment.
What followed looked choreographed, and in truth, it was.
One of the Skrulls took the shape of a little girl. Instead of inspiring compassion, it only provoked Wanda's fury, who instantly understood what it meant.
The weapon fired.
In a brief lapse, blinded by anger, Wanda unleashed her power, surrounding the twenty Skrulls and annihilating them instantly. Her magic penetrated their intangible bodies, disintegrating their cells until they were erased from the physical world.
But in her rage, she did not notice the bullet heading directly for the back of her neck.
At a centimeter from impact, Pietro pushed her away with his speed, taking the bullet himself.
He remained standing for half a second, smiling toward Wanda, and then collapsed to the ground.
Wanda screamed, her face soaked in tears, as her magic spiraled out of control, striking enemies and allies alike.
From his room, Ulysses watched in satisfaction. Everything was happening exactly as he had foreseen.
But Leonardo, present on the battlefield, looked at Pietro on the ground with annoyance.
"Are you stupid? Why didn't you just pull her out of there? Why stand still?"
As soon as he spoke those words, the vision in front of him began to distort, like a glitch.
Wanda returned to her previous position. Pietro pushed her again. But this time, their bodies were translucent, like holographic projections moving at high speed. The scene repeated over and over, with small variations: Pietro turning the other way, Wanda looking back or not, slight differences that showed it was not just a repetition.
After what, for the rest of the world, was one second, Leonardo smiled.
"I like this one," he said.
Wanda and Pietro's time returned to normal. Colors came back, becoming... real again. Pietro grabbed Wanda and pulled her away from the bullet's path, but this time he did not stop, he kept moving with her.
Wanda and Pietro didn't notice anything, but the rest did. They stayed silent, stunned, unable to understand what had just happened.
The silence was finally broken by a voice.
"It's incredible that I had to search so much just to find a possibility where he finally thought not to stand still," Leonardo murmured with a slight smile.
"Impossible!" shouted a voice from the speakers.
Leonardo ignored it and turned his attention back to the battle, which had already resumed. No one understood what had happened, except maybe Tony, but no one had time to think about it.
In front of Tony stood two Skrulls, one of fire and one of water.
The water one had been designed to defeat him, able to manipulate liquid even when separated from his body, the plan was obvious. But Ulysses had not foreseen Tony's fully sealed nano armor.
The situation with the fire Skrull was similar, the plan was to engulf the armor in flames, knowing that even if the suit was unharmed, the extreme heat would affect the human inside, but again, Stark's nano armor easily withstood much greater temperatures.
Thus, what was supposed to be a strategic battle thanks to Ulysses's visions turned into a simple exchange of projectiles.
For several rounds they fought until the Skrulls combined their powers, creating a thick vapor cloud that blocked Tony's vision. The armor adapted instantly, and although his vision was briefly affected, Tony easily dodged the attacks launched during that lapse.
However, exactly where he landed after dodging, he noticed something was wrong.
The floor was magnetized. No matter how much he tried to move, he could not lift his legs from the ground. Obviously, a trap.
A glass tube rose from the ground, trapping him inside.
Still, Tony did not seem worried. The Skrulls had not guided him exactly to that spot, they had merely bet that he would choose to go there himself. A move only someone like Ulysses could plan.
But there was a serious flaw in that plan, and it was that by giving Tony free will, it also meant that...
"There are other possibilities," Leonardo murmured.
And, just like before, Tony reappeared in his previous position. This time, he changed his path. He avoided the trap completely.
Because of the different situation, finding a possibility where Tony dodged was very easy. In fact, it was harder to find one where he fell into the trap.
The temporal adjustment was so quick that almost no one noticed, but one person was very angry.
"Impossible! No! How do you do that?" shouted Ulysses through the speakers, his voice full of rage and fear.
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