12 March 2008
If there was one thing worth noting about the men in these mountains, it was their taste in weapons. They collected rifles like status symbols and maintained them well enough to pass for professionals from a distance. Up close, the difference showed.
Lucius hovered above the second compound and lifted a cluster of rifles into the air with a single thought. He arranged them in a loose arc and tested control.
Five held steady. Ten aligned cleanly. Fifteen began to require attention. At twenty-four, the system settled into something he could rely on. Beyond that, the edges frayed and the aim degraded.
He controlled twenty-four rifles of different calibres. He reached out with telepathy and commanded twenty-four terrorists to run in random directions. Some choose the ridges, some simply run in a straight line as if distance might negotiate with what they could not see.
Lucius let them.
He raised the rifles and fired in sequence. Each trigger moved under his control, each shot placed with intent. Men fell at range with mechanical regularity. It worked, yes, but it was also slow.
He lowered the rifles and released them. They dropped into the dust and clattered into a shape that no longer interested him.
"Functional," he said, mildly. "Not efficient."
He changed his approach.
The rifle's metal parts started to break into small fragments, lifted from the ground. Shards from vehicles, broken casings, torn plates, anything conductive and sharp. He gathered them into a loose field around him and fed them with the charge he had taken from his earlier visit north.
The air around the fragments shifted. A faint hum built as the electricity settled into them. He selected a line of fleeing figures along the far ridge and released the first volley.
The fragments moved faster than the eye could track. Telekinesis carried them, the charge sharpened the impact, and the result differed from the rifle test in a way that immediately held his attention.
One target dropped cleanly. Another did not drop; it exploded the target into minced meat.
Lucius adjusted the output.
A second volley followed. Two impacts, one clean fall, one catastrophic failure of the structure.
He watched, then began to keep count.
"Two outcomes," he said, as if reviewing a report. "Direct collapse or over-delivery."
Another release. Another set of results. The ratio shifted slightly as he tuned the force and charge.
"These lands do favour dramatic exits in the form of suicide bombers," he added, almost thoughtfully. "I am simply allowing all to reach their ultimate goal."
A man crested a ridge and turned to fire blindly behind him. Lucius marked the motion, corrected for distance, and sent a single fragment through the rifle before it could discharge. The man folded.
He tracked the rest through his drones and finished the exercise without changing position.
Silence returned in stages. First, the gunfire ended, then the lives of the scum living like rats. The wind reclaimed the space last.
Lucius stashed the fragments for future use.
"Educational session two," he said. "Concluded."
He rose and turned toward the final cave system.
--
Tony Stark had lost the habit of time.
Without sunlight, without a clock, and without any fixed rhythm, days and nights had collapsed into the same stretch of work and exhaustion.
Work replaced everything.
He kept the pieces separate on purpose. Cylindrical sections, plates, and brackets were arranged to pass as parts of a missile body if anyone looked too closely. The real structure existed in his head and in the way the parts would come together when the door finally opened for the right reason.
Yinsen worked beside him with steady hands.
Tony tightened a connection and checked the alignment again.
"If I ever complain about my life again," he said without looking up, "remind me of this cave."
Yinsen did not pause.
"I will remind you that you are still very much a dick," he replied calmly. "That should be enough."
Tony let out a quiet breath that almost passed for a laugh and went back to work.
A sound cut through the routine.
Sharp whistles first, then impacts.
Tony froze.
Gunfire followed, but it did not settle into an exchange. It stretched, broke, then surged again.
Yinsen looked up. "Something's wrong."
Tony nodded, and they waited.
The noise continued long enough to lose any resemblance to a fight.
When it stopped, the silence felt wrong.
Footsteps followed. Voices. Shouts. Screams of pain. Confusion layered over anger.
Then one voice cut through, close.
"The son of a bitch has three hundred million in all his accounts," it complained. "Three hundred. Worthless pauper."
Tony frowned.
"That is new," he said.
The heavy steel doors tore out of the frame.
Metal screamed as it ripped free and crashed across the floor.
Tony was already on his feet. He shifted just enough to block the line to the parts without making it obvious.
Yinsen moved with him, steady and alert.
A man walked in. Lucius glanced once around the room, then settled on Tony.
Tony spoke first. "Who are you?"
Lucius let the question hang for a moment while he looked at him properly.
Injured but alive. Exhausted but aware. Still building something.
Yinsen spoke next.
"You are not with them?"
Lucius shifted his attention briefly, then returned to Tony.
"I've cleared the compound," he said. "Freed the prisoners and killed the rest. This was the last room."
Tony did not react to the words. He held eye contact.
"That explains the noise," he said. "Doesn't explain your presence."
Lucius stepped further inside.
"You're not one of Raza's men." Tony looked him over from head to toe. "You're not military, and you just walked through a compound like it's Tuesday."
A small pause.
"So I'll ask again. Who are you?"
Lucius considered him, then answered.
"Lucius Noctis."
Tony's brow shifted slightly.
"Queens?"
"Yes."
Recognition landed.
Tony straightened a fraction.
"The fruit wizard?"
Lucius's eye twitched, but he did not react. He reached into his coat instead and took out four red vials as if from an inner pocket.
Tony's eyes locked onto them immediately.
He stepped forward before thinking and took them.
"Jesus," he muttered, already uncapping one.
He drank it in a single motion, then another, and passed two to Yinsen without looking.
Yinsen hesitated only a moment before following.
The effect was immediate.
Tony exhaled deeply as the tension in his body eased.
He looked back at Lucius.
"You killed all of them?"
Lucius gave a small nod.
Tony absorbed that, then shifted again, his mind moving faster now.
"I've read about you," he said. "Nothing in there about this."
His eyes flicked briefly towards the door, then back.
"Got any of the yellow ones?"
Lucius extended another set without comment.
Yinsen stared at the vials, then at Stark, then back at Lucius.
The plan they had built for weeks had just changed without warning.
Lucius finally looked at the table properly.
He stepped closer and picked up one of the pieces, turning it slightly in his hand.
"These are not missile components," he said after a moment.
He set it down and looked across the rest.
"Body armour?"
Tony did not respond.
Lucius moved another piece, studying alignment, weight, and proportion.
Then he looked back at Tony.
"You're building an escape platform."
Tony clapped twice, slowly.
"Not bad."
Lucius tilted his head slightly, as if working something through.
"How are you planning to power it?" he asked, almost idly.
Tony's eyes sharpened.
"Now that," he said, "is an interesting question."
A pause.
Then he shifted tone.
"Now the area's clear," Tony added. "We can move."
He studied Lucius.
"You come in a helicopter?"
Lucius shook his head. Tony frowned slightly.
"I was kidnapped as well," he said. "By people who thought they could use me. They took my blood by force and tried to understand what I could do."
He met Tony's gaze.
"I assumed the same people might have taken you."
Tony's expression darkened slightly.
"Who… when… were you in Afghanistan too?"
Lucius shook his head again. "No. I was in my house. SHIELD kidnapped me."
Tony looked away for a moment, thinking, then back.
"Did you search the compound?" he asked.
When Lucius shook his head, the three of them moved out to search.
The bloodbath left behind was not something Stark or Yinsen were prepared for.
"How did they get you?" Tony asked, unable to hold it back. He gestured towards what remained of the compound's leader. Raza was in pieces.
Lucius touched his neck.
"Some kind of gas as a lullaby and an inhibitor collar for Homo Superiors did the trick."
Tony found the satellite phone while listening.
They moved into another room to sit. Tony had no intention of remaining where the floor was covered in human remains.
Lucius explained what had happened to him, how he had been taken and threatened, how he had been released, and how his house and car had been wrecked. He finished with the part that seemed to irritate him the most.
"SHIELD did not even attempt to pay for what they destroyed."
Tony frowned.
"With the price of your vials, you could buy another set," he said. From his perspective, it was a transaction.
"I liked that house and that car," Lucius replied. "They were the things I bought with what my family left me."
That line held Tony's attention.
After a moment, he started to dial.
"Rhodey," he said when the line connected. "I need extraction. Now."
He explained the situation and gave the coordinates. When he finished, he looked back at Lucius.
"We can continue this on the way back."
Lucius shook his head slightly.
"No. You'd better not mention me."
"How are you getting back, then?" Tony asked.
Lucius gave a faint shrug.
"On my own."
Tony studied him, then nodded once.
"Yeah," he said. "That part I figured out."
Lucius turned and walked towards the exit without another word.
Tony watched him go, then turned back to the cave where he had been building the armour. His gaze settled on the scattered pieces on the table.
This would not happen again.
Outside, the distant sound of helicopters began to cut through the mountains.
Tony looked at Yinsen.
"We don't know what happened here," he said. A brief beat. "Or who did it."
Yinsen nodded once.
They moved.