The battle was turning into a symphony of destruction.
Tony could see it from his position hovering thirty feet above the village square, the Mark III's HUD painting the battlefield in layers of tactical data. The Ten Rings fighters were breaking. Retreating. Realizing they were facing something beyond their capability to comprehend, let alone defeat.
Three impossible forces had converged on Gulmira. And the Ten Rings were learning what it meant to face the impossible.
"JARVIS, status report," Tony said, banking hard to avoid a stream of tracer fire. The rounds sparked harmlessly off his armor.
"Forty-three hostile combatants remaining, sir. Twelve are attempting to flee the village. Thirty-one are still engaged. Civilian casualties—three wounded, none critical. However—" JARVIS paused. "Sir, the remaining hostiles are regrouping. They're bringing up heavy weapons. Stark Industries Jericho missiles. They're preparing to level the civilian structures."
Tony's blood went cold. "Location?"
"Northern perimeter. Three technical trucks with Jericho launchers. They're targeting the main residential quarter where approximately two hundred civilians are sheltering."
"Not happening." Tony's jaw set. "Percy, Calypso—you hear that?"
"We hear it," Percy's voice came through the comm. He was breathing hard, the sound of combat in the background. "We're engaged on the eastern flank. Can't get there in time."
"Then I go alone." Tony angled toward the northern perimeter, repulsors screaming. "JARVIS, calculate intercept trajectory. Maximum burn."
"Sir, your arc reactor is at 15% power. Maximum burn will drain you to critical levels—"
"DO IT!"
The Mark III *roared*.
Tony shot forward like a missile, accelerating to speeds the suit had never achieved before. The G-forces would have killed a normal human. The Curse of Achilles-level durability enhancement from the arc reactor barely kept him conscious. The world blurred. Buildings became streaks of color. The wind resistance was a physical force trying to tear him apart.
He covered half a mile in three seconds.
The technical trucks came into view. Three of them, Jericho launchers mounted and armed. Tony could see the targeting systems activating. See the missiles tilting toward the residential quarter. See fingers tightening on the firing mechanisms.
"No you don't," Tony snarled.
He hit the first truck at 400 miles per hour.
The impact was *catastrophic*.
The Mark III's momentum transferred instantly into the vehicle. Metal shrieked. The truck *exploded*—not from munitions, from pure kinetic force. The chassis crumpled like aluminum foil. The Jericho launcher tore free, tumbling through the air. The fighters inside didn't even have time to scream before they were thrown clear, unconscious before they hit the ground.
Tony used the collision to redirect his momentum. Spun mid-air, repulsors firing to adjust his vector. Came around in a perfect arc aimed at the second truck.
The gunner saw him coming. Tried to swing the .50 cal around. Too slow.
Tony's fist came forward—repulsor charged, full power. The blast hit the truck's engine block. Superheated metal. Vaporized components. The engine literally *disintegrated*, taking the front half of the vehicle with it.
The truck flipped. End over end. Fighters bailed out mid-tumble. The Jericho launcher broke free, skidding across the dirt.
Two down. One to go.
The third truck's crew had learned. They weren't trying to shoot Tony. They were firing the Jericho at the civilians *right now*.
Tony saw the launcher ignite. Saw the missile leave the tube. Watched in the kind of horrifying slow-motion that comes from augmented perception and absolute terror as the Jericho arced toward the residential quarter.
"JARVIS—"
"I see it, sir. Impact in 3.2 seconds. The blast radius will encompass—"
"I DON'T NEED THE MATH! I NEED SOLUTIONS!"
"Sir, you don't have the power to intercept—"
Tony was already moving.
The repulsors screamed protest. The arc reactor in his chest dropped to 8% power. Warning klaxons blared inside the helmet. The HUD went from yellow to red to flashing crimson.
Tony accelerated.
Faster. Faster. Faster than the suit was rated for. Faster than was safe. Faster than was *sane*.
He caught the Jericho missile in mid-flight.
His gauntleted hands clamped around the rocket's body. The momentum nearly tore his arms from their sockets. Servo-motors screamed. The armor's structural integrity alarms hit critical levels. But Tony held on.
And he *redirected*.
Using every bit of strength the suit had. Every servo at maximum. Every hydraulic pushed past its safety limit. Tony turned the missile. Forced it to change course. Aimed it away from the civilians.
Away from Gulmira.
Straight up.
The Jericho's rocket motor was still firing. Still pushing. Tony was riding a bucking bomb through the sky, fighting to control it, fighting to keep it away from anything that could be hurt.
"JARVIS—height—"
"800 feet and climbing, sir. The missile will detonate in approximately 4 seconds—"
"Tell me when we hit 1500 feet!"
"Sir, you need to release it NOW—"
"NOT YET!"
1000 feet. The village was shrinking below. Tony could see the whole battlefield now. See Percy tearing through fighters on the eastern flank. See Calypso's golden glow as she protected civilians. See the third technical truck trying to reload another Jericho.
1200 feet.
"Sir—"
1400 feet.
"MARK!"
Tony *threw* the missile.
Straight up. With every bit of strength the suit had left. The Jericho tumbled into the sky, still accelerating, rocket motor blazing.
Then Tony dropped.
Free-fall. Repulsors at minimum—not enough power for proper flight. Just enough to keep him from becoming a crater.
The Jericho detonated.
Even at 1500 feet, the blast was *massive*. A miniature sun blooming in the sky. The shockwave hit Tony like a physical wall. Sent him tumbling. The world spun—sky, ground, sky, ground. Alarms everywhere. The arc reactor at 3% power. Structural integrity at 42%. Life support systems failing.
Tony was falling.
And he couldn't stop.
"JARVIS—"
"Attempting emergency protocols—no response—power levels critical—" Even JARVIS sounded panicked. "Sir, you need to activate repulsors NOW—"
"TRYING!"
The ground was rushing up. 500 feet. 400 feet. 300 feet. Tony could see individual buildings. Could see people looking up. Could see the moment of impact approaching with mathematical certainty.
200 feet.
Water erupted from the ground.
A geyser. A fountain. A tower of liquid that shot up to meet Tony's falling body. Not random—controlled. Shaped. Percy's work.
Tony hit the water column at terminal velocity.
It should have been like hitting concrete. Should have killed him. But the water *bent*. Absorbed the impact. Cushioned his fall with liquid that had suddenly become more than liquid—water infused with divine power, with the blessing of a dead god, with Percy Jackson's desperate will to save his friend.
Tony tumbled through the water column, his momentum bleeding away, until he splashed down into a pool Percy had created in the village square.
He surfaced, sputtering. The Mark III was completely dead. No power. No systems. Just dead weight.
"Sir?" JARVIS's voice was faint. "Sir, are you—"
"Alive. Somehow. Thanks to—" Tony looked up. Percy was fifty feet away, both hands extended, glowing blue-green like captured ocean. The entire village's water supply was responding to him. Wells. Pipes. Underground aquifers. All of it bending to Percy's will.
The water column collapsed, splashing down. Percy dropped to one knee, breathing hard. But he was grinning. "Caught you."
"Yeah. Thanks for that." Tony struggled out of the pool. The Mark III was a dead shell now. Just armor. No power. No assistance. Just three hundred pounds of gold-titanium alloy that Tony had to move through sheer determination.
A fighter ran at him with a knife.
Tony was exhausted. Drained. The suit was offline. He had nothing.
Except three months of survival instinct from a cave, and the memory of Yinsen dying to give him a chance.
Tony caught the knife strike against the dead armor's forearm. Used the attacker's momentum against him. Swept the legs. The fighter went down hard. Tony followed up with a servo-assisted punch—the suit might be dead but the mechanical joints still worked—and the fighter stayed down.
"JARVIS," Tony gasped. "Power status?"
"Arc reactor at 2%, sir. That's insufficient for flight. Insufficient for weapons. Barely sufficient for life support. I recommend immediate evacuation—"
"Not done yet." Tony forced himself to stand. Forced the dead armor to move. "The third truck. Where is it?"
"Northern perimeter. They're reloading. Thirty seconds until they can fire another Jericho."
"Then we have thirty seconds." Tony looked around. Spotted the Jericho launcher that had broken off the second truck. It was damaged but maybe—
He grabbed it. Dead suit servos screaming protest. Three hundred pounds of armor plus two hundred pounds of weapon. Tony shouldn't have been able to move. But rage and determination made up for mechanical failure.
"JARVIS, calculate firing solution. That third truck. I need to take it out."
"Sir, the launcher is damaged. Firing probability is less than 30%—"
"GIVE ME THE SOLUTION!"
A targeting reticle appeared on Tony's HUD—powered by what little remained in the arc reactor. Just barely enough to run the display. The third truck was in his sights.
Tony pulled the trigger.
The Jericho launcher coughed. Sparked. The missile tumbled out of the tube, rocket motor igniting unevenly. The Jericho wobbled through the air, its trajectory completely wrong, spiraling in a way that missiles definitely weren't supposed to spiral.
"Miss probability 87%," JARVIS reported.
The Jericho hit the third truck dead center.
Pure luck. Or divine intervention. Or maybe the universe just decided Tony Stark deserved one win today.
The truck exploded. The blast took out two adjacent vehicles and sent fighters scattering. The Jericho launcher—the last one, the final piece of Stark Industries equipment that could hurt civilians—turned to molten slag.
Tony dropped the empty launcher. "Status. Full battlefield status."
"Hostile combatants in retreat, sir. The remaining forces are fleeing north. The village is secure." JARVIS paused. "Sir, I'm detecting unusual energy signatures. Multiple sources. Mr. Jackson is still active, but Ms. Atlas—"
A golden nova erupted on the eastern flank.
---
Calypso Atlas was *done* holding back.
She'd been conservative. Careful. Using just enough power to disable threats without revealing what she truly was. Three thousand years of hiding her nature had trained her to be subtle.
Subtle was over.
A group of fifteen fighters had surrounded a building where families were hiding. They had grenades. RPGs. Enough firepower to bring the structure down and kill everyone inside.
Calypso stood between them and their target.
"Last chance," she said in perfect Pashto. "Leave now. While you can still walk."
The response was a grenade thrown directly at her face.
Calypso didn't move. Didn't dodge. Didn't flinch.
She raised one hand.
The grenade stopped in mid-air. Hung suspended in golden light three feet from her palm. The fighters stared. Someone shouted in Pashto—something that translated roughly to "What is she?!"
"I am the daughter of Atlas," Calypso said. Her voice resonated with power. With divinity. With three thousand years of being underestimated. "The Titan who holds up the sky. And you—"
The grenade spun in mid-air. Rotated 180 degrees.
"—have made a mistake."
She *threw* the grenade back.
Not at the fighters. Above them. The explosive detonated in the air, the blast directed upward by golden force fields that Calypso wove with barely a thought. The shrapnel rained down harmlessly.
But the message was sent.
The fighters panicked. Started firing. AK-47 rounds by the dozens, all aimed at Calypso.
She stood in the center of the barrage, arms spread, and *caught* them all.
Not with her hands. With her will. With titaness power that turned air into solid barriers. The bullets hit golden force fields and stopped. Dozens of them. Then hundreds. All suspended in mid-air around Calypso like a halo of death that she had decided to reject.
"My turn," Calypso said softly.
She *pushed*.
The bullets flew back. Not at the fighters—Calypso wasn't trying to kill. At their weapons. At their equipment. At every piece of Stark Industries technology they carried.
Metal struck metal. Guns exploded. Ammunition cooked off. Grenades detonated prematurely in their carriers. Within seconds, all fifteen fighters were disarmed, their equipment destroyed, many of them injured by their own weapons.
And Calypso was just getting started.
Her armor blazed. Full divine manifestation. White and gold metal that wasn't metal—was something between mortal matter and divine power. The kind of armor that could only be forged by a god in his final moments, pouring everything he had into one last masterwork.
Hephaestus had made her a weapon.
Time to use it.
Calypso moved.
Not running. *Flowing*. Titaness speed that made her a golden blur. She crossed the fifty feet to the nearest fighter in a heartbeat. Her staff materialized—the coin had given her tails but she'd shifted it during shadow travel, and now she wielded six feet of divine wood and metal.
The staff whirled.
Three fighters went down in as many seconds. Perfectly placed strikes—solar plexus, pressure points, the kind of hits that incapacitated without killing. Calypso had studied under the greatest warriors of every age. Had watched them train. Had learned their techniques. Had three thousand years to perfect every combat form that had ever existed.
She was fighting legends.
More fighters converged. These ones had learned that guns didn't work. They came with melee weapons. Knives. Machetes. Even a few old-style scimitars that someone had probably looted from a museum.
Calypso welcomed them.
Her staff became a whirlwind. Blocking, striking, redirecting. Every movement textbook perfect. Every strike precisely calculated. She was fighting fifteen opponents simultaneously and winning.
A scimitar came for her throat. Calypso's staff intercepted, redirected the blade into the ground. Her other hand shot out—palm strike to the wielder's chest. He flew backward, hit a wall, slumped down unconscious.
Two fighters tried to tackle her from different angles. Calypso jumped—twelve feet straight up, impossible for a human—and came down behind them. Staff strike to the backs of their knees. They collapsed.
A machete slashed at her back. Hit the armor. The blade shattered against divine metal. Calypso spun, staff sweeping in a horizontal arc. Three fighters caught in the strike. Down, down, down.
"She's not human!" someone shouted in Pashto. "She's a djinn! A demon!"
"Close," Calypso said. She flipped the coin mid-combat. The staff dissolved. The sword materialized. "But not quite."
The blade burst into brilliant golden light.
Captured sunlight. Divine power. The work of a god who had understood exactly what Calypso would need. A weapon that could cut through anything mortal while allowing its wielder to choose non-lethal force.
Calypso chose non-lethal.
But she chose *devastating*.
The sword flashed in complex patterns. Not cutting—striking with the flat of the blade, with the pommel, with controlled force that broke weapons and bones and spirits.
A fighter with an AK-47 tried to club her with it. Calypso's sword moved faster than the eye could follow. The gun barrel split in two. The fighter stared at his ruined weapon. Calypso's free hand shot out—precise strike to a nerve cluster. The fighter dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
More attackers. A dozen of them. All converging at once.
Calypso drew deep on her power.
The armor blazed brighter. Golden light erupting from every surface. And from Calypso herself—divine radiance that she'd suppressed for millennia, finally unleashed.
She was the daughter of Atlas. A titaness. Immortal. Powerful. And absolutely *done* with people trying to hurt innocents.
"Get back!" she roared.
The words carried power. Divine command. The kind of voice that Titans had used to shake mountains and command armies.
Half the fighters actually obeyed. Stumbled backward. Some dropped their weapons. Their mortal minds couldn't process what they were facing. Couldn't understand. Could only obey the terrible authority in that voice.
The other half were too stubborn or too brave or too stupid.
Calypso dealt with them accordingly.
Her sword moved in flowing patterns. Not the rigid techniques of modern combat. The ancient styles. The forms that had existed before human civilization. The fighting arts of Titans who had warred with gods.
She was a golden storm.
Every strike perfect. Every movement economical. Every ounce of her strength channeled through the blade with precision that three thousand years of practice provided.
Fighters went down. Ten, fifteen, twenty. Not dead—unconscious, disarmed, incapacitated. Broken but alive. Defeated but breathing.
Calypso stood in the center of her defeated enemies, the sword blazing in her hand, divine light making her a beacon.
And she felt *good*.
For the first time since her island had fallen. For the first time since her world had ended. She felt like herself. Like what she was always meant to be.
Not a prisoner. Not a victim. A warrior. A protector. A titaness defending those who needed defending.
"Who else?" she called out in Pashto. "Who else wants to try?"
The remaining fighters ran. Just turned and fled. Because what else could they do against something like her?
Calypso let them go. She wasn't here to kill. Just to save.
She turned toward the building she'd been protecting. The families were emerging now. Cautiously. Staring at her with expressions that mixed awe and terror.
An elderly woman—Bibi Yasmin, though Calypso didn't know her name yet—stepped forward.
"What are you?" she asked in English.
Calypso let the divine glow fade. Let her armor dim to something closer to normal. Let herself look human again.
"I'm someone who should have helped a long time ago," Calypso said quietly. "And I'm sorry it took this long."
---
Percy Jackson was having the time of his afterlife.
The Curse of Achilles sang through his body like electricity. Every muscle perfect. Every nerve firing at peak efficiency. Every movement the absolute best version of what movement could be.
He was *unstoppable*.
A technical truck roared toward him, .50 cal firing, the gunner tracking Percy's movement with desperate precision.
Percy didn't dodge.
He *ran at it*.
The bullets hammered toward him. The Curse let him see them coming. Not literally—they were too fast for that—but he could feel the trajectories. Could sense where they'd hit. Could move his vulnerable spot—the small of his back, protected by divine armor—to ensure every bullet struck invulnerable flesh.
The rounds sparked off his chest, his shoulders, his legs. Each impact felt like a hard shove. Painful but not damaging. The Curse made him nearly immortal, and "nearly" was close enough.
Percy closed the distance to the truck. Thirty feet. Twenty. Ten.
He *jumped*.
Not human jumping. Demigod jumping. Curse-enhanced jumping. Percy launched himself twelve feet into the air, Riptide blazing in his hand.
The gunner's eyes went wide.
Percy came down in the truck bed. Riptide flashed once. The .50 cal's barrel fell off, cut clean through. The gunner scrambled back, reaching for a sidearm.
Percy's free hand shot out. Grabbed the gunner by his vest. *Lifted* him—Curse-enhanced strength making the man feel like a child—and tossed him out of the truck bed. The gunner hit the dirt, rolled, stayed down.
The driver hit the brakes. Trying to throw Percy off balance.
Percy rode the momentum. Shifted his weight with perfect control. Brought Riptide down in a clean arc.
The engine block split in two.
Celestial bronze, Imperial gold, and Uru—three divine metals forged together. The blade could cut through *anything*. Modern steel was like butter.
The truck died. Rolled to a stop. Smoke pouring from the destroyed engine.
Percy jumped off. Landed in a crouch. Scanned for his next target.
Ten fighters were converging. These ones had learned. They weren't using guns. They had machetes, clubs, improvised weapons. Planning to overwhelm him with numbers and close combat.
Percy grinned.
"Bad plan, guys."
He moved.
Riptide sang. That distinctive sound celestial bronze made when cutting air. When moving faster than mortal senses could track. When wielded by someone blessed by Achilles himself.
Percy was a whirlwind.
The first fighter swung a machete. Percy's blade intercepted. Metal screamed. The machete shattered—divine metal versus mortal steel, no contest. Percy's momentum carried through. Pommel strike to the temple. The fighter dropped.
Second fighter. Third. Fourth. Percy moved between them like water. Like his father's element. Flowing, adapting, impossible to pin down.
Riptide cut through weapons, through equipment, through anything that wasn't human flesh. Because Percy didn't kill if he could avoid it. The Curse made him the perfect warrior, but Percy Jackson chose to use that perfection for mercy rather than slaughter.
A fighter tried to tackle him from behind. Percy felt it coming—the Curse gave him almost precognitive awareness in combat. He sidestepped. Let the attacker's momentum carry him past. Tripped him. The fighter went sprawling.
Two more with clubs. Swinging in coordination. Actually showing some skill.
Percy met them head-on.
The Curse made him fast enough to deflect both strikes simultaneously. His blade a blur. One club deflected high. One low. Then Percy was inside their guard.
Two strikes. Two pressure points. Two unconscious fighters.
The remaining attackers hesitated. Seeing their friends fall. Seeing this young man with the impossible sword cut through them like they were nothing.
"Run," Percy suggested. "While you can."
They ran.
Smart.
Percy turned toward the village center. Scanning. Looking for the next threat. The next group that needed stopping.
That's when he felt it.
A disturbance in the water table. Something *big* was moving toward Gulmira from the north. Something that displaced massive amounts of groundwater. Something heavy enough to make the aquifer shift.
"JARVIS," Percy called out. "What's coming from the north? Something big?"
"Scanning, Mr. Jackson—multiple contacts—I'm reading—" JARVIS paused. "Sir, I'm detecting four M1 Abrams tanks approaching from the north. Distance approximately two kilometers. They appear to be—" Another pause. "They're painted with Ten Rings markings. I don't know how they acquired U.S. military hardware, but—"
"Tanks." Percy looked at Riptide. At the three-foot blade that could cut through steel but wasn't exactly anti-armor equipment. "Okay. Tanks. I can work with that."
"Mr. Jackson, I must advise against engaging armored vehicles with a sword—"
"I'm not using the sword." Percy sheathed Riptide. Felt for the water table. For the aquifer. For the massive underground reservoir that fed this entire region.
He *pulled*.
The ground erupted.
Four geysers. Each one precisely placed. Each one erupting directly in front of an approaching tank. Water shot fifty feet into the air—thousands of gallons per second, pulled from deep underground by Percy's will.
The tanks hit the water walls at full speed.
Water shouldn't stop a seventy-ton tank. But this wasn't normal water. This was water infused with divine power. Water that Percy had made *solid* through sheer force of will. Water that had become something between liquid and stone.
The tanks hit the barriers and *stopped*.
All four of them. Sixty miles per hour to zero in an instant. The crews inside were thrown forward. Knocked around. Stunned by impossible physics.
Percy wasn't done.
He reached deeper. Found the aquifer. Found the underground river that had flowed beneath Gulmira for ten thousand years.
And he *redirected it*.
The ground beneath the tanks turned to liquid. Not because of water rising—because Percy had turned the groundwater itself into a directed force. The tanks sank. Not completely—Percy wasn't trying to bury them—but enough. Enough that their treads lost traction. Enough that they were stuck.
Four M1 Abrams, the most advanced tanks in the world, immobilized by a twenty-three-year-old with water powers and a bad attitude.
"Tanks neutralized," Percy reported. "JARVIS, how many hostiles left?"
"Hostile count is dropping rapidly, Mr. Jackson. Between you, Ms. Atlas, and Sir, the Ten Rings forces are in full retreat. Current count: seven active combatants. Twelve in retreat. The village is secure."
Seven left. Percy could handle seven.
He moved toward the village center. Riptide in hand. The Curse singing through his veins. And he felt *alive*.
This was what he was meant to do. This was his purpose. Not mourning his lost world. Not hiding what he was. But *using* it. Using his powers, his gifts, his curse-turned-blessing to actually help people.
The remaining seven fighters were clustered near the northern exit. Making a last stand. Or trying to.
Percy approached at a walk. Not rushing. Not concerned. They could see him coming. Could see the sword. Could see the impossible things he'd already done.
"Leave," Percy said in English. "Now. While I'm still being nice."
One of them—braver or stupider than the others—raised an AK-47.
Percy reached out with his power. Found the water in the air. The moisture from human breath. The condensation. The humidity.
He *froze* it.
Not naturally. Through divine power. Through connection to his father's domain. The moisture in the air crystallized into ice. Hundreds of tiny ice particles that Percy shaped with his will.
The ice formed around the AK-47's mechanism. Inside the barrel. Throughout the firing chamber. In the space of a heartbeat, the weapon was completely frozen from the inside out.
The fighter pulled the trigger.
The gun exploded. Ice-compromised metal shattering under the pressure of an attempted firing. The fighter dropped the destroyed weapon, staring at his hands in shock.
"I said leave," Percy repeated.
They left.
All seven of them. Ran like hell was chasing them. And maybe it was. Maybe Percy Jackson—son of a dead god, blessed by a dead hero, survivor of a dead world—was the closest thing to hell these fighters would ever face.
Percy sheathed Riptide. Looked around the village.
Tony was standing near the village center, the Mark III completely dead, somehow still standing through sheer stubbornness.
Calypso was surrounded by grateful civilians, her divine glow fading but still present.
And Gulmira—Yinsen's village, the place worth dying for—was safe.
Percy's throat tightened. He touched the pen in his pocket. Felt Riptide there. Felt the weight of his father's legacy.
"We did it, Dad," he whispered. "We actually saved them."
The ocean was seven thousand miles away. But Percy swore he could feel it responding. A faint pulse of approval. Of pride.
His father was dead. His world was gone. Everything he'd known had been consumed.
But Percy Jackson was still a hero.
And that had to be enough.
---
They regrouped in the village center. Tony in his dead armor. Percy exhausted from using so much power. Calypso barely standing, the divine light finally extinguished.
Civilians were emerging from hiding. Families reuniting. The wounded being tended to. And in the center of it all, Bibi Yasmin—elderly, strong, the unofficial leader of Gulmira—was organizing people with practiced efficiency.
She approached Tony. Studied him. The bullet-riddled armor. The dimmed arc reactor. The man inside who'd flown seven thousand miles to save people he'd never met.
"You are Tony Stark," she said in accented English. "The weapons maker."
"Yes," Tony said. His voice was hoarse. "And I'm sorry. The weapons that destroyed your village—they were mine. I built them. I sold them. And I'm here to make sure it never happens again."
Bibi Yasmin's expression was unreadable. Then she nodded once. "I heard Yinsen died for you."
Tony's throat tightened. "He did. He died believing I could be better."
"Then be better." Bibi Yasmin's eyes were hard but not unkind. "Yinsen gave his life for you. Do not waste that gift."
"I won't. I promise."
She turned to Percy and Calypso. Studied them with the same measuring gaze. "And you two. You are not soldiers. Not normal people. What are you?"
"We're friends," Percy said simply. "Helping however we can."
"Friends who glow and control water and fight like djinn from stories." Bibi Yasmin smiled slightly. "Gulmira will remember you. All three of you. The man who returned to help. And the spirits who came with him."
"We're not spirits," Calypso said gently.
"Close enough." Bibi Yasmin looked back at Tony. "The aid organizations are coming. I hear them on the radio. They will help rebuild. But you—" She pointed at Tony. "You stop the weapons. Stop them from reaching people like the Ten Rings. Stop my village from becoming your weapons testing ground."
"I will. I am. That's why I shut down the division." Tony's jaw set. "No more weapons. No more death. Just—better things. Helpful things."
"Good." Bibi Yasmin nodded. "Then Yinsen's death had meaning. And you have honored his memory."
She walked away, back to organizing her people. Leaving Tony, Percy, and Calypso standing in the center of a saved village.
"We should go," Calypso said quietly. "Before official people arrive and start asking questions."
"Agreed." Tony looked at his dead suit. "Though I'm not sure how. The Mark III is completely drained. Can barely move. And I can't exactly walk to the nearest airport wearing this."
"Shadow travel," Calypso said. Her voice was strained. "I can do it one more time. Maybe. If I'm very careful and we're very lucky."
"You look like you're about to pass out," Percy said with concern.
"I'll pass out after we get home. Not before." Calypso's eyes hardened. "I'm not leaving Tony stranded in Afghanistan. Even if it kills me."
"It's not going to kill you," Tony said firmly. "But if you can get us out of here, I will be eternally grateful and also probably build you something amazing."
"I'm holding you to that."
They moved away from the village center. Found shadows deep enough for Calypso to work with. The sun was setting—perfect timing. Darkness gathering in corners and alleys.
Calypso closed her eyes. Drew on reserves she didn't have. Burned through divine power that was already depleted. But she was the daughter of Atlas. A titaness. And titanesses didn't quit just because something was impossible.
The shadows deepened. Became solid. Became a doorway.
"Hold on," Calypso whispered. Her voice was fading. "This is going to be rough."
Percy grabbed Tony's arm. Made sure his friend—because that's what Tony was now, friend—wouldn't fall through the void.
Calypso stepped into the shadow.
And dragged them seven thousand miles in the space between heartbeats.
---
They tumbled out of the shadows in Tony's workshop. The transit had been *bad*. Worse than before. The darkness had *fought* them. Calypso had barely kept the path open. Had burned through every reserve she had. Had pushed herself past safe limits into territory that risked permanent damage.
Percy caught her as she collapsed. She was barely conscious. The divine glow completely gone. She looked mortal. Fragile. Human.
Tony stumbled forward, the Mark III dead weight. And that's when they heard the scream.
Pepper Potts was standing in the workshop. Staring. Her face pale. Her eyes wide. Her professional composure completely shattered.
Because she'd just watched three people appear out of *shadows*. Had watched Calypso—glowing, exhausted, clearly something more than human—materialize out of darkness.
And Tony. Tony in the Mark III. The armor she'd suspected existed. The suit she'd hoped was just paranoia. Bullet-riddled. Scorched. The faceplate up so she could see his face.
Pepper screamed again.
---
Hey fellow fanfic enthusiasts!
I hope you're enjoying the fanfiction so far! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Whether you loved it, hated it, or have some constructive criticism, your feedback is super important to me. Feel free to drop a comment or send me a message with your thoughts. Can't wait to hear from you!
If you're passionate about fanfiction and love discussing stories, characters, and plot twists, then you're in the right place! I've created a Discord (HHHwRsB6wd) server dedicated to diving deep into the world of fanfiction, especially my own stories. Whether you're a reader, a writer, or just someone who enjoys a good tale, I welcome you to join us for lively discussions, feedback sessions, and maybe even some sneak peeks into upcoming chapters, along with artwork related to the stories. Let's nerd out together over our favorite fandoms and explore the endless possibilities of storytelling!
Can't wait to see you there!