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In the live broadcast, millions of people watched Ethan Mercer leap for a helicopter and felt their hearts break.
"One step short. Just one step."
"He was so close. The armor was RIGHT THERE."
"Is the Republic really going to lose him?"
"Wait — what is he DOING?"
Ethan's left hand caught a thick railing on the helipad structure. His right hand caught the helicopter's landing gear.
His body stretched between them like a bridge, arms spread, every muscle in his enhanced frame engaged in a single, impossible act of defiance.
He was trying to stop a helicopter from taking off. With his hands.
In the live broadcast, the reaction was immediate and heartbreaking.
"He's lost it. The failure broke him."
"He's venting. He can't accept being one step away."
"Nobody can hold a helicopter. Not even with the serum."
At the Bureau, Graves and the Chancellor stared at the screen and shook their heads. In their assessment, this was desperation. The raw, anguished response of a teenager who'd fought through twenty agents, survived a ten-story fall, and run down a truck on foot, only to watch his one way home lift off the ground without him.
At the Hargrove residence, Marcus was on the edge of his chair, hands white-knuckled on the armrests.
Kid, keep going. This is the last step. Hold on and you go home.
Inside the helicopter, the pilot was running out of explanations for what his instruments were telling him.
The engines were at maximum power. Full throttle. The rotor system was generating enough lift to carry nearly three tons of cargo while maintaining altitude. This was a hospital helicopter, but its specifications were military-adjacent. The traction force was sufficient to drag heavy equipment at full flight speed.
And the helicopter was not ascending.
The pilot had followed his orders without sentiment. He didn't care about the teenager hanging from his landing gear. From the moment he'd received the command to transport the armor, he'd pushed the stick to maximum, fully prepared for the boy's grip to fail, his arms to tear, his body to drop.
None of that happened.
The control stick was maxed. The engines were screaming. And the helicopter was hovering at three meters, held in place by a single person pulling from below.
The pilot stared at his instruments. Then at the figure beneath him. Then back at his instruments.
What kind of monster is down there?
Ethan's face was crimson. Veins stood out on his neck and forearms like cables. His enhanced muscle fibers were operating at absolute capacity, every cell burning glucose at a rate that would have killed a normal human from oxygen debt alone.
If the helicopter's thrust increased by even a fraction more, his grip would fail.
But it wasn't increasing. The engines had plateaued. The machine had reached its limit.
And Ethan hadn't reached his.
He took a breath. Drew it deep into lungs that could process oxygen three times more efficiently than they had a month ago. Felt the air fill him, felt the energy find his muscles.
Then he pulled.
His left arm, anchored to the helipad railing, became the fulcrum. His right arm, locked onto the landing gear, became the lever. And the force that flowed through both was generated by a body that had been rebuilt from the cellular level upward by the most advanced biochemistry the System had ever downloaded.
The helicopter descended.
Not falling. Not crashing. Being pulled. Inch by inch, meter by meter, dragged out of the sky by a teenager whose muscles were generating force in excess of what the rotor system could overcome.
The hospital staff watching from the windows were going to need their own neurology department before the day was over.
The pilot panicked. He ripped off his helmet and threw it at the figure below.
"Let GO, you—"
Ethan, hit by the flying debris, tilted his head up. His face was a mask of effort, veins pulsing, teeth bared, eyes burning.
"I don't... understand... a word... you're saying!"
He pulled harder.
"GET..."
"DOWN..."
"HERE!"
The helicopter slammed into the helipad.
BOOM.
The impact ruptured the fuel lines. The rotors, still spinning at full speed, shattered against the concrete and sent fragments in every direction. Fire erupted from the engine housing. The cargo bay buckled.
An instant before the crash, Ethan released both grips and threw himself sideways, rolling clear of the explosion radius with the desperate speed of a man who'd just fought for ten straight minutes and had exactly enough energy left to not die in the finale.
Smoke engulfed the helipad.
In his command post, Callister felt the world tilt.
The boy dragged a helicopter out of the sky with his bare hands.
That's not a human being. That's a weapon system that happens to have a face.
"How long until the nearest reinforcement unit reaches St. John's?"
His staff, terrified by his expression, answered quickly.
"Three to five minutes, sir."
"DAMN IT!"
Three to five minutes. The kid had gone from the conference room to the helipad in ten minutes flat. Killed the Whitfields, disabled six agents, fought through twenty more, chased a truck on foot, survived a ten-story fall, stopped a helicopter, and recovered his armor.
In ten minutes.
No reinforcement on earth could have responded fast enough.
Callister could only do one thing: pray. Pray that the kid died in the explosion. Pray that the armor was destroyed.
Under the gaze of every eye in the world, the smoke cleared.
In the depths of the haze, a pale blue light ignited.
The reactor.
Then the eye slits.
Then the full silhouette. Red and gold, catching the firelight, standing in the center of the wreckage like it had been waiting there all along.
Ethan's voice came through the armor's external speakers, broadcast by the Signal Bee to every screen on the planet.
"The feeling of being back is not bad at all."
The live broadcast detonated.
"HE GOT THE ARMOR BACK!"
"FROM THE HANDS OF THE AURELIAN REPUBLIC! HE TOOK IT BACK!"
"Fusion reactor! Battle armor! Super soldier serum! THREE inventions! Every single one a miracle!"
"PROFESSOR MERCER IS NOT HUMAN! HE IS A GOD!"
At the Bureau, Graves sat down very slowly.
The resignation letter he'd been composing in his head disintegrated.
Chancellor Thayer, standing beside him, was already on the phone.
"Deploy warships and fighter jets to the eastern seaboard, along the edge of our territorial waters. If Mercer makes it back to the coast, I want protection in place the moment he crosses into our airspace."
His voice carried the weight of absolute authority.
"This is not a request. This is a direct order from the Chancellor."
The chief of staff, who had served Thayer for years and had never heard him prioritize a single person's safety with this level of urgency, understood. He went to make the calls.
In the ruins of St. John's Hospital helipad, Ethan stood in the Mark Two and ran a systems check.
The armor had taken damage in the crash. Some of it. Not enough to matter. The reactor was stable. The flight systems were operational. The weapons were charged.
He was battered. Bullet wounds. Bruises. The residual ache of dragging a helicopter out of the sky. But the serum was already working, accelerating healing, managing pain, restoring function.
He had his armor. He had his body. He had a clear sky above him and an ocean between here and home.
Time to leave.
In his command post, Callister stared at the armored figure on the screen with bloodshot eyes.
"No. I haven't lost."
His voice was a rasp. The voice of a man who'd watched every plan fail, every advantage evaporate, and every assumption about what was possible get destroyed by a teenager.
"Mercer is NOT leaving this country alive."
He turned to the staff member beside him.
"Connect me to the East Coast Military Command. Immediately."
The staff member, looking at a Defense Secretary who appeared ready to bite through steel, stammered an acknowledgment and went to make the connection.
Callister stared at the screen. At the red and gold figure, standing in the wreckage, preparing to fly.
"Just wait, Mercer. You're not going home."