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Ethan's phone buzzed on the coffee table.
He glanced at the screen, recognized the number, and felt a grin spread across his face that had nothing to do with warmth.
He set the phone back down and turned up the volume on the television.
On the other end of the line, every unanswered ring was a small death for Gerald Thornton. He stood in the quiet corner of the faculty office, phone pressed to his ear, sweat beading on his forehead, listening to the tone cycle through once, twice, three times, four, until the call disconnected automatically.
He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it.
He saw my number. He knows it's me. And he let it ring out.
Thornton told himself the comfortable lie first: maybe the kid was busy. Maybe he didn't have his phone nearby. After all, Ethan Mercer was a national figure now. Probably fielding calls from every direction. It didn't necessarily mean—
He dialed again.
The call connected on the first ring.
"What is it, Director Thornton?" Ethan's voice was casual, unhurried, faintly amused. "I deliberately didn't answer the first time. So why are you calling back?"
The words hit Thornton like a slap. Every shred of the excuse he'd been constructing collapsed. Ethan hadn't missed the call. He'd seen Thornton's name, watched it ring, and chosen to let him sit in the silence.
Thornton's face went the color of a bruised plum.
But the alternative to swallowing this was unemployment. So he swallowed.
"Student Mercer." His voice came out strained, a performance of calm that fooled nobody. "I know there were some... conflicts between us in the past."
He paused, searching for words that would cost him the least amount of dignity.
"Regardless of who was at fault, perhaps we could put it behind us. A fresh start. For everyone's benefit."
On his end, Ethan listened to Thornton try to split the difference between an apology and a non-apology, and felt the old anger stir.
"Regardless of who was at fault."
Even now. Even with his career in ashes, his colleagues pretending he didn't exist, and his principal threatening to fire him by end of day. Even now, Gerald Thornton couldn't bring himself to say the words "I was wrong."
He was trying to erase the past without acknowledging it. Trying to declare peace without admitting there'd been a war. As if the two years of targeted harassment, the framed expulsion, the televised smear campaign, the destruction of Frank's career could all be filed under "conflicts" and swept clean with a handshake.
If Ethan had been an ordinary student, Thornton would have succeeded. An ordinary student would have been buried. Reputation destroyed. Future extinguished. Another casualty of a system that rewarded pettiness and punished anyone who dared to push back.
The only reason it hadn't ended that way was a glowing blue tattoo and a dream that wasn't a dream.
"I'll be direct, Thornton." Ethan's voice lost its amusement. "It's not impossible for me to consider returning to Ashford Prep. But I have a condition."
On the other end, Thornton straightened. A condition meant a chance. A chance was all he needed.
"Name it. Whatever it is."
"Simple. Apologize to me. In person. In front of the entire student body and faculty of Ashford Preparatory Academy."
Silence.
Long, absolute silence.
Thornton's vision went white around the edges. A public apology. In front of the school. Every student who'd watched him strut across the commendation stage. Every teacher who'd nodded along to his speeches. Every administrator who'd deferred to his authority.
Standing on that same stage, in front of those same faces, and admitting that everything he'd said about Ethan Mercer was a lie.
That's not a condition. That's an execution.
"Mercer, don't push too far. There should be room for—"
"The condition is exactly as I stated." Ethan's voice cut through like a closing door. "Your livelihood or your face. You decide."
The line went dead.
Thornton stood in the corner of the faculty office, phone in hand, breathing through his nose. The veins on the back of his hand stood out like cables.
Then, with a sound that made every teacher in the room flinch, he slammed the phone into the floor.
The screen shattered. The case cracked. Pieces of it skittered across the tiles.
Nobody looked up. Nobody said a word.
Thornton stood over the wreckage of his phone with bloodshot eyes, his chest heaving, looking nothing like a teacher and everything like a man watching the last of his power drain away through his fingers.
The rest of the afternoon was a parade of unwanted phone calls.
Exclusive interview requests from outlets that had called him a fraud two weeks ago. Corporate recruitment pitches from companies he'd never heard of. Speaking invitations from universities. One caller actually asked if he'd be available to judge a science fair. Ethan declined them all with decreasing patience and increasing speed.
Then a number appeared on the screen that made him sit up straighter.
"Hello, Dr. Archer."
Dr. Helen Archer was working late in her office at Ashford Prep when she heard his voice, and something in her chest loosened. She'd taught hundreds of students over thirty years. Most of them forgot her name within a year of graduation. The ones who achieved real success were the quickest to forget.
But this kid. National fame. Government verification. Dr. Hargrove's personal endorsement. And the first word out of his mouth was still Dr. Archer, spoken with the same respect he'd used when he was a scholarship student asking about homework.
"The mess you've made this time is really something, Ethan."
Her voice was warm underneath the teasing, and Ethan grinned.
"No matter how famous I get, I'm still your student. Everything I know started with your teaching."
"Oh, stop. I certainly didn't teach you controllable nuclear fusion."
He laughed, and for a moment the conversation felt like the old days — like he was standing in her office after class, asking about a problem set, and the rest of the world didn't exist.
Then Dr. Archer's tone shifted.
"Ethan, Principal Davenport came to see me today. He wants you to come back. Thornton came too, separately."
"I turned them both down."
Ethan was quiet for a moment. He understood what that meant. Davenport was Archer's direct superior. Refusing his request wouldn't be forgotten, and the man had a long memory and a petty streak.
"But if you asked me to advocate for your return," Dr. Archer continued, "I would do it in a heartbeat."
Ethan felt the familiar tightness in his chest. The same feeling he'd had the day she'd stood on the assembly stage and told Greer and Thornton to back off. The same feeling he'd had when she'd said "you will always be my student" as he walked out the gates for the last time.
Two years at Ashford Prep. One person who'd been fair. Just one.
"Dr. Archer, your concern means more to me than you know."
"But I want to be honest with you. You're right that going back to high school would be a waste of time. I need to be somewhere that challenges me, and Ashford Prep can't do that anymore."
A pause. Then: "Did you hear me?"
"I heard you, Dr. Archer."
His voice brightened.
"But let's not dwell on the heavy stuff. Tomorrow during the morning assembly period, I'd suggest you grab a front-row seat. There's going to be a show worth watching."
He could practically hear her shaking her head through the phone.
"You... honestly. Thornton and Greer must have done something truly terrible in a past life to deserve crossing paths with you."
After she hung up, Ethan set the phone down and enjoyed the first stretch of quiet he'd had all day.
Then he opened the System interface.
[Prestige] 80,340
[Items] None
[Level 1 Mall]
Small Nuclear Reactor Technology (Iron Man) — EXCHANGED
Mark I Battle Armor (First generation Iron Man suit) — 10,000 Prestige
Mark II Battle Armor (Second generation; cannot fly at high altitudes) — 20,000 Prestige
Mark III Battle Armor (Third generation; classic red and gold design; infrared lasers, miniature missiles, extreme combat capability) — 50,000 Prestige
Super Soldier Serum (Captain America) — 100,000 Prestige
Eighty thousand points. More than enough for any of the armor models.
The Mark I was the logical choice. Cheapest option, most prestige left over afterward, and historically the suit Tony Stark had built in a cave with a box of scraps. Functional. Practical. Ugly as sin, but it got the job done.
The Mark II was an improvement in every way, but the high-altitude limitation made it a stepping stone rather than a destination.
The Mark III, though.
Classic red and gold. The suit that had defined Iron Man across an entire cinematic universe. Infrared lasers. Miniature missiles. Flight capability without altitude restrictions. Combat power that would make military hardware look like toys.
And beyond the specs, there was something else. Ethan had watched the Iron Man films hundreds of times in his downloaded Earth-Prime memories. He'd felt the audience gasp when the Mark III assembled itself around Tony Stark for the first time. He'd felt the goosebumps when the faceplate snapped shut and the HUD flickered to life.
If he was going to build armor, he was going to build that armor. The Mark I and Mark II were stepping stones that a man trapped in a cave needed. Ethan Mercer wasn't trapped in a cave. He was sitting in a living room with eighty thousand Prestige points and a whole world to shock.
"System. Exchange for the Mark III Battle Armor manufacturing technology."
"Prestige deducted. Mark III Battle Armor manufacturing technology has been transmitted to the Host."
The download hit him like a tidal wave.
If the reactor technology had been a firehose of information, the Mark III was a tsunami. Not just the armor specs — though those were staggering in their complexity and elegance — but everything connected to them. Advanced metallurgy. Micro-fabrication techniques. Weapons systems engineering. Flight dynamics. AI interface architecture. HUD design. Power distribution networks. Propulsion physics.
The reactor had given him physics. The armor gave him engineering. The entire discipline, compressed into a knowledge package so dense and interconnected that Ethan had to grip the arm of his chair and breathe through the download like a man surfacing from deep water.
When it was over, he sat still for a full minute, letting the new knowledge settle.
Then he opened his eyes, and the world looked different.
Not literally. The living room was the same. The TV was still on. Linda's leftover dishes were still on the kitchen counter. But when Ethan looked at the television — at its wiring, its housing, its display technology — he could see every flaw, every inefficiency, every place where the engineering could be improved by a factor of ten.
The reactor had made him a physicist. The armor had made him an engineer. And the combination of the two had given him a perspective on technology that nobody else on this planet possessed.
[Prestige] 30,340
Thirty thousand points remaining. The Super Soldier Serum was still out of reach at 100,000. But that was fine. The armor came first. Protection. Mobility. Deterrence.
Because Hargrove had been right. The world was going to move fast now. And Ethan intended to be ready when it did.
He closed the System interface, picked up his phone, and started making a list of materials.
The Mark III wasn't going to build itself.
For every 500 Powerstones extra chapter.