A soft blue portal suddenly rippled open inside Gene's office aboard the S.W.O.R.D. mothership. Gene stepped out from within, the armored plating on his suit hissing as its heat-dissipation vents sprang open. The immense energy required to manipulate the Space Stone had generated staggering amounts of heat, and now the surrounding air warped and twisted from the intense thermal waves—almost as if invisible magnetic currents were tugging at it.
Even though his armor had been reforged with Uru metal, allowing him to channel the Space Stone's power freely, a long-distance jump still produced tremendous heat. Fortunately, Uru's unique properties made it manageable; a quick venting cycle was enough to stabilize the systems. This was a far cry from his earlier battle with Galactus, when he'd had to constantly monitor every joint and seam to prevent catastrophic damage mid-fight.
The moment the tip-of-the-spear squad heard that Gene had returned safely, they rushed to find him. Wanda, in particular, felt a tension she hadn't realized she'd been carrying finally lift from her chest. Only now did she recognize just how much she had been worrying about him.
"Well, Wanda, now that the boss is back, you can relax, right?" Daisy teased, giving her a sly look.
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Wanda's cheeks flushed almost imperceptibly. "Caring about the boss is just part of the job… and don't you care about him too?"
"Tsk, tsk," Daisy clicked her tongue in mock wonder but didn't press further.
The two women walked side by side through the mothership's gleaming corridors toward Gene's office. They weren't alone—other squad members were converging as well. Knowing Gene had made it back to Earth intact settled everyone's nerves. S.W.O.R.D. was S.W.O.R.D. because Gene was here; without him, it felt incomplete.
When the office doors slid open, they found Gene standing before a floating holographic display. Projected in vivid detail was the battle footage of their Eagle-class fighter being ambushed.
The squad's expressions hardened. In Gene's absence, they had tasked Little Ultron with combing through Earth's entire surveillance network for any trace of that silver-white armored figure. The search had yielded nothing. It was as though the enemy had simply vanished from existence, leaving no trace—unless, of course, Ultron's scans had been somehow jammed.
"Boss, what the hell was that thing? It felt ridiculously strong," Daisy asked first. Her shockwaves hadn't even scratched the armor during the fight, and her curiosity about its origins had only grown.
"That," Gene replied calmly, "was the Destroyer—an Asgardian construct designed to annihilate anything in its path."
A machine of war with the power to erase entire worlds and an exterior nothing could pierce—its reputation was well earned. Gene reminded them: if they ever encountered the Destroyer again, do not engage head-on. Stall, evade, and wait for his return.
With that warning delivered, Gene turned his attention to the two greatest spoils from his recent "business trip": the Aether, seized from the Dark Elves, and the Planet-Devouring Device, now holding roughly eighty percent of Ego's planetary mass, converted into raw energy.
In his lab, two reinforced cubic glass containment units now stood side by side. The Aether swirled violently inside one, its crimson form constantly shifting into strange, otherworldly shapes and slamming against the reinforced walls—only to be stopped cold by the intricate magical wards Gene had woven around it. The other box held the Planet-Devouring Device, lying quietly in its cradle, radiating soft silver-white pulses—the distilled essence of Ego's power, and the single most valuable trophy from that cosmic clash.
A mere fraction of that energy, properly converted, could keep Gene's armor operational for a thousand years under normal conditions. Against an overwhelming foe, the duration would shorten, but the advantage remained colossal.
The Aether, however, was far more troublesome. Unlike the Power Stone—which could directly manifest its destructive might—most Infinity Stones required specific mediums or catalysts to channel their true abilities. Gene had confirmed this in his research into the Mind, Time, and Space Stones: without specialized devices, their potential was severely limited. Even with decades of work, Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. had barely scratched the surface of the Space Stone's capabilities.
For the Aether, Gene knew brute-force science alone wouldn't cut it. This time, he would start from the other end of the spectrum.
He would begin… with magic.
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