With that explosion, a violent shockwave surged through the ventilation shaft.
Everyone arguing in the conference room was instantly thrown back.
Even worse, the floor cracked, and both Black Widow and Dr. Banner fell to the floor below.
The entire Helicarrier was thrown into chaos.
"Hill!" Nick Fury struggled to his feet and immediately asked Hill for an update.
"External explosion, engine number three is down!" Hill reported immediately.
Hawkeye's expression was not only grim; although this incident happened in the future, and it was clearly Loki controlling him to do all of this.
Still, he was the one who carried out the actions.
This made Hawkeye Barton truly difficult to accept.
"Can the engine be repaired? Answer me!" Nick Fury continued to demand loudly over the comms, and Hill immediately started consulting with technical personnel.
"The turbine is mostly fine, but we can't send anyone out to repair it while we're operating," the technician said.
"If we lose another engine, we're done for!" Hill immediately concluded, "Someone has to go out and fix the engine!"
Undoubtedly, Tony Stark was the only one on the entire Helicarrier capable of such a task.
"Stark, do you hear me?" Nick Fury immediately spoke to Tony Stark.
"I'm going to fix it now!" Tony Stark replied immediately.
"Coulson, immediately open the defensive lockdown of the restricted area!" Nick Fury continued to issue orders to his subordinate, "When you're done, go to the armory. Romanoff?"
"I'm fine!" Black Widow replied, lying on the ground. Her leg was pinned by a heavy object, temporarily preventing her from getting up.
However, this was a minor issue for Black Widow.
The truly deadly problem for her was that Dr. Banner, next to her, was on the verge of losing control!
Dr. Banner, having been subjected to a massive impact, was now in an extremely unstable state.
"Listen, we'll all be fine!" Black Widow immediately began to soothe the increasingly out-of-control Dr. Banner, "I promise with my life, I'll get you out of here and we'll hide far away..."
"Your life?"
Dr. Banner roared, interrupting Black Widow, and then began to struggle desperately.
But after being repeatedly bombed and thrown, Dr. Banner could no longer control himself, growing bigger and greener as he struggled.
Finally, the Hulk appeared.
At this critical moment, Black Widow also pulled her leg free from the heavy object and began to escape.
Roar!
A beast-like roar came from behind, as the Hulk pursued Black Widow like a predator.
Next, the Hulk and Black Widow put on an incredibly spectacular man-versus-beast battle.
The Hulk was practically a human tank, smashing everything in his path to smithereens as he pursued.
If Black Widow hadn't been as agile as a monkey, darting around, she would have been pounded into a pulp by the Hulk long ago.
Despite this, Black Widow was soon swatted away by the Hulk, landing dazed and unable to get up.
Roar!
Amidst the roars, the Hulk walked step by step towards Black Widow.
Black Widow was forced into a corner, unable to dodge, and could only watch as the Hulk approached her step by step.
Everyone present couldn't help but hold their breath for Black Widow.
Just as the Hulk was about to pummel Black Widow, whoosh!
A figure suddenly darted out, tackling the Hulk to the ground.
The two crashed through a wall, creating a hole, and into another room.
It was none other than Thor.
"I recognize this footage!" Thor immediately recognized it, "This footage has been shown before."
Not just Thor, but several other veterans present who had seen the relevant video also recognized it.
That was the answer explanation for the question "Who cannot lift Thor's hammer?".
At the time, everyone wondered why Thor and the Hulk would fight; now they finally understood the reason.
Under everyone's gaze, Thor and the Hulk engaged in a fierce battle.
However, even Thor was unable to defeat the Hulk; in the end, Hill sent out a fighter jet to fiercely shoot at the Hulk from outside.
Roar!
The enraged Hulk immediately abandoned Thor, leaping out of the Helicarrier with a crash and onto the fighter jet outside.
He put on a show of dismantling a fighter jet with his bare hands.
Only then was this "Hulk crisis" resolved.
Next, the scene began to switch to other scenarios.
Tony Stark and Captain America were seen repairing the engine that Hawkeye Barton had blown up.
Meanwhile, in the Helicarrier's main hall, an invasion was also unfolding, with a special forces team led by Hawkeye Barton mercilessly attacking the Avengers.
During this process, Hawkeye Barton fired another arrow.
The arrowhead carried a virus program, which immediately hacked the Helicarrier's control system, causing all display screens to go black.
"Engine number one has been shut down!"
The technical personnel immediately reported.
Agent Hill had just said that if they lost another engine, they would be done for, and now, another engine had indeed lost power.
Stark and Captain America had not yet repaired the first blown-up engine, which meant that the Helicarrier was currently without power.
The entire Helicarrier began to plummet downwards!
If Stark couldn't repair the engine in time, everyone on the Helicarrier would die with its fall, without exception.
The situation, it could be said, was extremely urgent.
"As expected of the God of Mischief and Deception," Dr. Banner couldn't help but exclaim.
Loki's move was undeniably brilliant; whether it was the Hulk or disabling the Helicarrier, both were extremely destructive tactics.
In fact, if Agent Hill hadn't acted decisively and lured the Hulk away, Hawkeye wouldn't have had to bother; the entire Helicarrier would have been torn apart by the Hulk.
Up to this point, Loki himself had done nothing, yet he had almost brought devastating blows to the entire Avengers and the entire SHIELD base.
From this perspective, Loki's reputation as the God of Mischief and Deception was indeed well-deserved.
Fortunately, Tony Stark was very reliable at the critical moment; he timely repaired the first blown-up engine, which allowed the Helicarrier to regain power in time.
This averted the tragic outcome of "plane crash and human casualties."
But the chaos caused by Loki was far from over.
At this point, the camera switched.
Thor, who had just finished fighting the Hulk, was seen wandering through the Helicarrier's corridors with Mjolnir, eventually arriving at Loki's confinement room.
Bang!
The door to the confinement room was slowly opening; Loki was about to escape.
"No!"
Thor cried out, rushing towards Loki in a hurry, trying to prevent him from coming out.
However... that Loki was just an illusion; Thor lunged into empty space, throwing himself into the confinement room.
Bang!
The confinement room door immediately closed, and Thor was easily locked inside by Loki.
"This trick always works on you."
Loki stood outside the confinement room, looking at Thor trapped inside, a mocking, triumphant smile on his face.
The enraged Thor furiously swung his hammer at the confinement room's glass, attempting to smash it and break out.
However, the confinement room's glass was far more durable than imagined; Thor's strike only caused a crack, nothing more.
"Hehehe!" Loki chuckled, "Earthlings think we are immortal gods, want to test it?"
With that, Loki walked over to a control panel, intending to press a button on it.
"Please step aside!"
A voice sounded, and it was Coulson, holding a very stylish, non-standard weapon—a large gun—aimed at Loki.
"Do you like this? After you sent the Destroyer, we started researching this," Coulson said as he walked towards Loki, "I don't know what this gun can do, do you want to find out?"
With that, Coulson activated the gun.
Splat!
But at that moment, the sound of a blade piercing flesh rang out; Loki had appeared behind Coulson at some point, and his scepter pierced Coulson's chest.
"No!"
Thor roared in anger from inside the confinement room.
However, at this moment, he could do nothing.
He could only watch helplessly as Loki did as he pleased in front of him.
After taking down Coulson, Loki, with the smile of a victor, walked back to the control panel again.
After a couple of taps, the floor beneath the confinement room holding Thor suddenly retracted, and a direct passage downwards appeared.
Loki then pressed a lever.
Whoosh!
The entire confinement room rapidly plummeted down that passage, detaching from the Helicarrier.
It fell rapidly from tens of thousands of feet in the air, plummeting downwards.
At this point, the camera switched again.
Loki was seen riding a fighter jet, leaving the Helicarrier, a smug smile on his face.
The scene froze on Loki's smile.
"That was truly a complete defeat," Hawkeye Barton couldn't help but exclaim first.
"Indeed," Black Widow shrugged, agreeing, "The Avengers, plus so many SHIELD agents, were almost completely wiped out."
Black Widow wasn't exaggerating; the Hulk, and two engines successively destroyed—these were all "extinction-level" crises.
If not handled properly, the Helicarrier would have been destroyed, and everyone on board would have perished with it.
"So this is Loki's true face, Loki's true ability," Captain America said with a serious expression to everyone, "We underestimated Loki before."
In previous relevant footage, Loki was either captured by SHIELD, tormented by Thor, or even blown away by Hawkeye's arrow.
This made everyone more or less look down on Loki.
But now, this footage made everyone look at Loki with new eyes.
Loki was confined in the isolation room from beginning to end, never personally taking action, yet he managed to make both the Hulk and Thor fall from tens of thousands of feet in the air.
Although everyone didn't think these two guys would die from the fall, at such a great height, even if they didn't die, it would probably be quite a struggle.
The entire Helicarrier almost plummeted from high altitude; although Tony Stark eventually repaired the engine in time, preventing such a tragedy.
Yet the entire Helicarrier base was utterly defeated.
Finally, Loki swaggered away.
He truly had the demeanor of someone who plans strategies from within the command tent and achieves victory a thousand miles away.
"Only those without strength resort to such schemes and tricks!" Tony Stark, however, curled his lips, saying with a hint of disdain.
He had looked down on Loki before, and now, even more so.
[This round of questions has ended!]
At this moment, the system's prompt sound came, and the large screen floating above everyone's heads suddenly disappeared, as if it had never been there.
Dr. Banner and Hawkeye Barton surveyed the scene, noticing that the previously still leaves and everything else immediately returned to normal.
The questioning had indeed ended.
"I must say, this was truly an amazing experience; I never thought there was such a magical question-and-answer system in the world," Dr. Banner couldn't help but exclaim first.
"Why us?" Hawkeye Barton raised this question, glancing at everyone present and saying, "Why us?"
"Barton, why bother with such meaningless questions?" Tony Stark shrugged, "Since we've been chosen, that's a stroke of luck! We just need to seize the opportunity."
Hawkeye Barton nodded: "You have a point!"
Next, the few of them exchanged a few more words, and Black Widow extended an invitation to Dr. Banner: "Dr. Banner, we're returning to SHIELD soon, why don't you come with us?"
"There are other questioners in New York; we questioners will meet up and share information about the question-and-answer system."
Dr. Banner instinctively agreed with the idea, but then hesitated.
He was afraid he wouldn't be able to control himself, and the Hulk would appear again.
"It's okay, Banner, I'll watch over you."
Captain America saw the worry on Dr. Banner's face and knew what he was concerned about, so he smiled and said to him.
Dr. Banner glanced at the bracelet on Captain America's wrist, and his worries greatly diminished.
After some thought, he agreed: "Alright!"
...
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