The Extremis soldier saw Kade on the ridge and smiled.
Contemptuous. Pitying. The virus had made him virtually immune to firearms. Bullets softened and splashed against his skin on contact, the five-thousand-degree heat melting metal into liquid spray before it could penetrate. Like water droplets on a hot pan. Regeneration handled whatever got through.
And with his speed, closing the distance to a man with a pistol would take seconds.
The pale blue streak that hit his chest was not a bullet.
The pulse round crossed the gap in an instant. A straight line of energy, unaffected by gravity or wind. It struck dead center and detonated.
There was no splash, no melting. AllSpark energy wasn't metal. The creature's internal heat did nothing to reduce the impact. A crater the size of a football blew open in his chest, exposing ribs that glowed red-hot underneath.
On a normal person, fatal three times over. The Extremis soldier staggered, looked down, and watched his wound begin to close. Fast. Seconds, maybe.
What kind of pistol is that? That power... I could take five of those at most...
Last thought he ever had.
Because the Pulse Pistol was continuous fire.
Kade held the trigger and emptied the magazine. All forty rounds. No hesitation. Against something with Extremis-level speed, the first shot only landed because the creature was arrogant enough to stand still. The moment it knew what it was dealing with, there wouldn't be a second chance.
Forty pulse rounds turned the position into a crater. Not just the body. The bedrock beneath the sand was pulverized. When the dust settled, what was left of the Extremis soldier was fused into vitrified ground. Head more or less intact. Everything else had melted into rock and glass.
Kade and Tony walked to the edge. The heat was savage, waves of it rippling the air, the half-glassed sand crunching underfoot.
"What the hell was that thing?" Tony asked.
"Who knows. Maybe he ate too much fast food and overheated."
Tony stared at him. Rolled his eyes so hard his whole head moved. "Which brand? Because I'm having Pepper buy the chain."
Then Tony's gaze dropped to Kade's hip. "That pistol. Can I take a look?"
Kade drew the Pulse Pistol and tossed it to him. "Keep it. But you need to keep it quiet."
"Keep it quiet?" Tony was already turning it over in his hands, fascinated. "What, did you steal it?"
For Tony Stark, a man whose entire personality revolved around showing off his genius to the world, the idea of keeping a revolutionary weapon secret was practically a sin. If you invented something incredible, you basked in public worship. You didn't hide it.
Kade didn't bother explaining. He just reached to take the pistol back.
"Hey, no, wait." Tony pulled the weapon out of reach. "My friend, I will absolutely keep your secret. Scout's honor. Cross my heart."
He whistled for Blitz, and the two of them disappeared into the cave. Tony clutching his new toy, Blitz lumbering behind like an oversized lab assistant. Kade could already hear Tony muttering about the energy conversion mechanism before they rounded the corner.
He found Yinsen sitting near the cave entrance, watching convoy smoke drift across the horizon.
"With this batch gone," Kade said, "the military should finally get off their asses. Even if someone's been stalling, they can't ignore this much longer."
Yinsen nodded.
"So you're really staying?"
"My people need me. It's the only purpose I have left as a doctor."
"With respect, Yinsen, even a great doctor can only save so many. There's no justice on any side of this war. The terrorists, the warlords, the so-called freedom fighters. And the Americans aren't any better. Next time someone decides to persecute your village, it might be the people who are supposed to be the good guys."
Kade meant it. As a former soldier, he'd learned the hard way that the people you fought beside and the people who gave the orders weren't always on the same side.
But Yinsen smiled. That tired, stubborn smile of a man who'd already decided.
"Do you know the legend of my village?" he said. "They say that when the people face suffering and refuse to surrender, a divine messenger will appear. More beautiful than any woman who has ever lived. She can heal any wound, cure any disease, even bring back the recently dead." His voice was quiet. "I want to stay long enough to find out if it's true."
Kade recognized faith when he saw it. Not the blind kind. The kind that survived everything the world could throw at it and was still standing. You didn't argue with that.
"Then I hope she's real," Kade said.
Three hours after the last terrorist died, the US military suddenly remembered how to respond to a distress signal.
A communication request came through Tony's beacon. After confirming Tony's identity, a helicopter descended and extracted all three of them. At Tony's insistence, Blitz, in vehicle form and keeping conspicuously quiet, was loaded onto a cargo transport and shipped to the nearest forward operating base.
Kade and Yinsen were classified as unidentified persons. Despite Tony's protests, they were separated and placed in holding for identity verification.
Kade sat in a white interrogation room for several days, questioned by rotating teams of intelligence officers. Standard processing, they said.
Then someone new walked in.
Short. Thinning hair. Unremarkable face, off-the-rack suit, the general appearance of an accountant who'd wandered into the wrong building.
Kade studied him openly. So this was the legendary Agent Coulson. Future director material. Never judge a book by its cover.
"Mr. Lawson," the agent said, sitting down. "Is there something on my face?"
"No. Just wondering what SHIELD actually is. Some kind of federal agency?"
"An international intelligence and security organization. Not quite the same thing." Coulson opened a thin folder. "Let's get to the point. Based on the identity you provided during intake, we ran a search through our Pacific Bureau. Australian Defence Force records, immigration databases, civilian registries." He paused. "Nothing came back."
"Nothing?"
The word came out quieter than Kade intended.
The identity he'd given them was real. His actual name, from his previous life. Part of him, a small stubborn part he hadn't fully acknowledged until this moment, had hoped that maybe he hadn't really left his old world. That somewhere, his service record still existed. That the people he'd known were still out there.
Coulson's answer killed that.
This wasn't his world. Not anymore. The regiment, the mates, the years of service. None of it existed here. He was a ghost. A man with memories of a place that had never been.
He wasn't sure if what he felt was grief or relief.
"Mr. Lawson," Coulson said, watching him carefully. "We need to verify your identity before we can make an accurate assessment. So. Can you tell me who you really are?"
PLZ Throw Powerstones.