The room was silent, save for the hum of the air conditioner and the rhythmic sound of Leander finishing his pizza. Pepper had already moved toward the door, her hand hovering over the handle.
"It's probably the chamomile tea," she murmured, her voice still a bit shaky from the day's adrenaline. "I ordered some for Maya. She looks like she's about to have a heart attack."
Maya Hansen didn't respond. She was staring at the wall, her mind a tangled mess of regret and scientific calculations. She knew what was coming, even if she hadn't admitted it to herself yet.
Leander, however, didn't look at the tea tray. A faint, molten gold shimmer sparked in the depths of his pupils—a predatory glint that hadn't been there a year ago. Through the solid wood of the door, he didn't see a waiter. He saw a thermal signature that was burning far too bright to be human.
"Pepper, get back," Leander said. It wasn't a suggestion; it was a command that rattled the glass on the nightstand.
Pepper froze, her fingers inches from the deadbolt. She turned, looking at Leander with wide, startled eyes. "What? Leander, it's just room service."
"I'll get the door," Leander said, stepping past her. His movements were fluid, like a shadow stretching across the carpet.
He gripped the handle and pulled. A young man in a crisp hotel uniform stood there, smiling professionally behind a silver domed tray. To Pepper, he looked like a harmless kid working a night shift. To Leander, he looked like a sheep being herded by a wolf.
Because right behind the waiter, a figure materialized from the corridor's gloom.
It was Aldrich Killian. He didn't say a word. With a casual, brutal efficiency, he placed his hands on the waiter's temples and twisted. The sickening crack of vertebrae echoed in the small entryway. Killian shoved the man's limp body aside as if he were dropping a bag of trash, his eyes locked onto Pepper.
Pepper's scream was caught in her throat, a choked sound of pure horror. "Maya, run! Get out of here!"
She scrambled back, her heels skidding on the hotel carpet, momentarily forgetting that the "Golden Legend" was standing right in front of her.
Killian didn't even look at Leander. To him, the boy was just an obstacle—a scrawny teenager in shorts who had wandered into the wrong room. Killian's focus was entirely on Pepper. He wanted his leverage. He lunged forward, his hand reaching out like a claw, aiming straight for Pepper's throat.
He never reached her.
Leander didn't move his upper body. He simply pivoted on his left heel and whipped his right leg around in a kick so fast it broke the sound barrier in the confined space.
BANG!!
The impact sounded like a car crash. Leander's shin buried itself into Killian's midsection, dumping thousands of pounds of force into the man's ribs. Killian didn't just fall; he was erased from the doorway. He flew backward, a blur of motion that shattered the drywall of the opposite suite, disappearing into a cloud of white dust and splintered wood.
Maya scrambled onto the bed, her face pale with terror. Pepper slumped against the wall, her chest heaving as she watched the dust settle. The peace she had felt knowing Leander was back was the only thing keeping her from fainting.
"How... how did he even find us?" Pepper gasped, her mind racing. "We used an alias. We were careful."
Leander didn't answer. He knelt beside the fallen waiter. He couldn't leave a life behind just because he was in a hurry. He placed a palm on the man's mangled neck, and a surge of radiant golden light erupted from his skin.
The light was blinding. The waiter's body levitated an inch off the floor, his twisted neck snapping back into alignment with a series of wet pops. The golden energy flooded the bruised tissues, stitching together the spinal cord and repairing the crushed trachea in a matter of seconds. Leander waved his hand, and the unconscious man floated gently into the corner of the room, tucked away from the line of fire.
Across the hall, the pile of rubble shifted.
A low, guttural growl vibrated through the floorboards. Killian emerged from the hole in the wall, his clothes singed and torn. But he wasn't bleeding. Instead, his skin was pulsing with an inner light—a terrifying, lava-like glow that seeped through his shirt. Reddish-orange cracks appeared on his face and chest, his internal temperature skyrocketing as the Extremis virus went into overdrive.
Any ordinary man would have been turned into paste by Leander's kick. But Killian was the pinnacle of Maya's research—the ultimate "rewrite" of the human genetic code.
Extremis wasn't just a healing factor; it was a biological overhaul based on ancient Mayan concepts of regeneration. It hacked into the brain's bio-electrical centers, allowing the body to rewrite its own DNA on the fly. Severed limbs grew back in minutes. Scars vanished. And the side effect? The body became a living furnace, capable of generating heat that could melt through a tank's hull.
Killian wiped a smudge of dust from his forehead, his eyes glowing like embers. He looked at Leander, his arrogance returning despite the broken ribs that were currently knitting themselves back together with audible clicks.
"That was a hell of a kick, kid," Killian said, his voice dropping into a menacing hum. "Who are you? Stark's new bodyguard? Or just another science project?"
Leander stood his ground, blocking the path to the women. "I'm the guy who's going to make sure you don't walk out of here."
Killian laughed, a dry, rasping sound. He lunged. His hand was no longer human; it was a white-hot brand, glowing with over three thousand degrees of thermal energy. He aimed a palm strike at Leander's head—a blow designed to vaporize bone and brain matter instantly.
Even Steve Rogers would have been incinerated by the proximity alone. Pepper shielded her eyes, the heat in the room becoming unbearable, the wallpaper starting to curl and brown.
Leander didn't flinch. He didn't even dodge. He tightened his fist, a pale golden aura enveloping his skin like a suit of celestial armor.
Unshakeable Golden Body: Activated.
CRUNCH.
Killian's white-hot palm collided with Leander's golden fist. The sound wasn't of flesh hitting flesh, but of a hammer hitting an anvil.
"ARGH!" Killian screamed, the sound tearing through the hotel.
His forearm didn't just break; it shattered. The bone snapped in the middle, the jagged white end nearly punching through his glowing skin. The "unshakeable" nature of Leander's defense had turned Killian's own momentum against him.
But the horror didn't stop there. Within three seconds, the orange glow in Killian's arm intensified. The bone pulled itself back together, the skin sealed over, and he was whole again. The pain remained, a lingering echo in his eyes, but his body was ready for more.
"You're a fast healer," Leander noted, his voice flat. "Let's see if you can heal faster than I can break you."
Killian's face contorted with rage. He threw a left hook, his entire arm glowing so bright it was blinding. This wasn't just a punch; it was a thermal lance designed to pierce through twenty centimeters of solid steel.
Leander caught the punch with one hand. The heat hissed against his golden aura, steam rising as the air itself began to burn, but the boy didn't move an inch. The floor beneath Leander's feet cracked under the pressure, but his arm remained a solid, immovable bar of gold.
Snap.
Killian's left arm gave way under the strain of his own forced impact. He was effectively punching a mountain.
"My turn," Leander said.
He delivered a front kick to Killian's chest, the force of it launching the billionaire across the suite and through the far wall. Killian tumbled another ten meters, his body finally embedding itself into the structural steel of the building's elevator shaft.
Before Killian could slide down, Leander flicked his fingers.
The steel tension wires inside the shattered wall reacted to his command. They snaked out like silver vipers, wrapping around Killian's wrists, ankles, and neck. They tightened, pinning him to the exposed rebar, leaving him suspended five feet off the ground like a glowing, struggling insect.
Killian's abdominal wound—a massive indentation from Leander's boot—was already smoking as it repaired itself. He thrashed against the wires, his skin glowing hotter and hotter, leaving blackened burn marks on the concrete behind him.
"That's a neat trick," Leander said, walking toward the hole in the wall. "But every time you heal, your cells are burning through energy. You're a battery, Killian. And I have all night to drain you."
The temperature in the room had risen by twenty degrees in seconds. Pepper grabbed Maya's arm, pulling her back toward the bathroom. She looked at Leander's back—indifferent, calm, and utterly dominant—and felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the heat.
Maya was hyperventilating, her eyes fixed on the boy who was manhandling the man she thought was an unstoppable god. "He's... he's just a kid," she whispered. "How is he doing that to Extremis?"