I'm Real, He's Fake

One punch.

Just one punch.

The heavy cannon carrying Astra's hopes had been smashed into fragments all over the ground by Beckett's fist before it could even show its power. The Plasma Cannon had been destroyed before it could fire.

"Who the hell are you?!"

Stepping on the corpse of his old companion, Astra took two steps back. Every muscle in his body tensed as he prepared himself.

"You don't need to know. Now, come with me." Woz could only block the communications network for three minutes. Beckett had no extra time to waste arguing with this man.

"What if I say no?"

Astra narrowed his eyes, wariness filling them. Granted, the fact that this man had shattered the heavy cannon with one punch had genuinely shocked him, but that was no reason for him to obediently comply.

"You don't have the right to choose." Beckett lifted his chin. His icy, arrogant words made Astra frown. Astra's thick arm moved first, his fist shooting toward Beckett's cold face, only to be stopped by a single finger.

What?!

It was clearly just one finger, yet Astra felt as though his arm had struck an unbreakable wall. Just as he tried to pull his hand back, Beckett's knee drove into his abdomen, and an agonizing pain instantly swept through every nerve in his body!

The pain forced his opened mouth to let out an incoherent groan. Threads of saliva dripped from the corners of his lips onto the ground. Astra clutched his stomach with his right hand, his knees buckling as he fell powerlessly to them before Beckett.

"I told you, you don't have the right to choose."

Beckett looked down at the man kneeling before him, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged Astra toward the entrance of the building as if he were hauling a corpse.

If his adoptive father Thanos had not wanted him alive, Beckett would not have needed to waste so much time. One slap would have killed him.

"Cough, cough..."

Having finally recovered from the agony and rough dragging, Astra grabbed the doorframe with both hands. That final bit of stubbornness made Beckett turn around.

"Though I don't know who you are, your target must be the energy conversion formula in my head."

Seeing Beckett stop, Astra sneered and struggled to rise from the ground.

"If that's the case, I'm afraid you can't take me away. At the very least, not before the Skrulls outside are all dead." A smile tugged at Astra's lips as he stood.

"This command center and the laboratory below have a special magnetic field. That field protects my brain from having its memories copied by the Skrulls."

"But once you take me away from here, if there are still Skrulls in that frozen world outside, your actions will simply be handing them what they want."

"They will copy every one of my recent memories without hesitation, including that energy conversion formula."

Leaning against the doorframe, Astra laid out, word by word, the drawbacks of taking him from the command center.

"Of course, you can gamble. Gamble that every last one of those damned Skrulls has been frozen into lifelike ice sculptures. But look at me. Look at those Kree soldiers in the communications center who weren't frozen either. You should understand that this freezing can be resisted."

After saying that, Astra rummaged through the pouch at his waist and pulled out a small bottle of liquor.

"Well? Tell me, do I still have a choice?" Astra raised the little bottle toward Beckett, made a toast in the empty air, then sneered and took two swigs as he waited for Beckett's answer.

"Of course not." Beckett removed the wristband from his right wrist and pressed a button. In an utterly unscientific transformation, the tiny wristband became a solid azure robotic cat.

"Woz, make a helmet that can interfere with Skrulls copying his memories."

"Understood, His Highness Beckett." Woz scratched the back of his head. Beams from his eyes scanned every inch of the building, inside and out. Then he waddled into the building on his short legs to find materials and make the device.

Constructing a magnetic field with a similar function was no problem at all for Woz. Not long after leaving, he returned to Beckett with materials he had chipped out of the ice.

He pulled a simple auxiliary program from his pocket and attached it to his waist. Eight Mechanical Arms immediately appeared behind him, waving an assortment of tools.

For a moment, the eight Mechanical Arms danced wildly, the clanging of metalwork ringing out without end.

With the helmet as a carrier in place, the special shielding magnetic field followed. Woz even added a small extra feature at Beckett's request. When the green helmet was placed on Astra's head, disbelief still hung on his face.

Could literally any random nobody be a scientist these days???

Having lost his last safeguard, Astra followed Beckett out of the building with an ugly expression. As he took in the rare scenery of ice sculptures along the way, he wore a green helmet and gloomily drank bottle after bottle of Blue Dream.

He knew he probably could not escape.

"His Highness Beckett!"

The Other, who had been using the Azure Scepter to maintain the Casket of Ancient Winters' continuous output, excitedly waved when he saw Beckett return with the target.

"Congratulations to His Highness Beckett on completing the mission." While singing his praises, The Other waved a hand and deactivated the cloaking on the small battleship behind him.

Two squads of Chitauri soldiers marched down from the battleship in orderly lines to welcome Beckett back.

"Take him aboard."

The Other withdrew the scepter pressed against the Casket of Ancient Winters. After signaling to the soldiers who had descended from the battleship, he jogged all the way over to Beckett.

Without the key to activate it, the Casket of Ancient Winters immediately stopped releasing energy, and the frozen area ceased expanding.

"You're the one who froze this city?" Astra, now in the custody of the Chitauri soldiers, looked at the frail-looking The Other, then at the Casket of Ancient Winters on the ice. For a moment, he did not know what to say.

He had initially thought it was some massive device, but it turned out to be just a little box?

The Other had no intention of paying him any attention. He merely stood behind Beckett, looking like an obedient high-ranking lackey.

Astra was escorted onto the battleship first by the Chitauri soldiers.

"His Highness Beckett! Don't be fooled!!!!"

"Those people are Skrulls!!!!"

Just as Beckett was about to board the battleship, a panting voice rang out from the distance. The Other, with one eyeball missing, appeared before Beckett while gasping heavily, followed by more than a dozen Chitauri soldiers.

"They're Skrulls, His Highness Beckett!"

The Other beside Beckett's face instantly darkened, and his words were filled with the Skrulls' language.

"Everyone, stay alert!" The Other shouted at the top of his lungs, stepping in front of Beckett first. Some of the Chitauri soldiers who had just escorted Astra onto the battleship appeared behind The Other as well.

"His Highness Beckett! Believe me! I'm the real one! He's the impostor!"

The one-eyed The Other aimed his gun at the other version of himself and shouted with heartfelt sincerity.

"His Highness Beckett! I'm real! This guy is an impostor!"

"His Highness Beckett, I-I'm the real one!"

"I'm real! He's fake!"

"I'm real! He's fake!"

"..."

The chattering declarations of authenticity made Beckett's brows knit tightly.

"His Highness Beckett, whether in biological genes or technological structure, the two of them are exactly identical." After scanning both versions of The Other, Woz, the robotic cat transformed from the wristband, spoke with a rare note of disbelief in his voice.