"Give me a charge?"
Tony looked toward the only two people present who could be considered magic users—Karl and Thor. Strange and Wanda were nowhere to be seen.
Karl shrugged while Thor looked eager to try.
The next instant, thunder exploded across the sky.
Thor's entire body became wreathed in lightning. Blue arcs crackled from his eyes, and Stormbreaker flashed with countless silver serpents of electricity.
Karl, meanwhile, was far more restrained. Flames gradually rose around him, gathering into a single orange-red fireball in his palm.
Inside the Destroyer Armor, cold sweat broke out on Tony's forehead.
He had a strong feeling these two were taking the opportunity to settle old scores.
The magical energy they were displaying was far too excessive. It looked less like charging a battery and more like they were trying to kill him.
Before Tony could even protest, Thor had already raised Stormbreaker.
A lightning bolt as thick as a bowl shot forth, striking the arc reactor on Tony's chest with perfect accuracy.
At the same time, Karl gently blew on the flame in his hand.
The fireball floated lightly toward Tony.
Wherever it passed, even Thor's lightning was forced aside.
BOOM—!!
The two magical forces exploded on Tony simultaneously.
Violent magical energy swept outward like a storm.
Under the combined lightning and fire, nobody could even see Tony anymore.
The storm raged for more than ten seconds before suddenly contracting.
Everything began rushing toward the center.
A pair of crimson lights appeared within the vortex.
Like water spiraling down a drain, the storm was devoured by the figure at its center.
Strange runes emerged one after another from the whirlwind.
Every trace of Karl and Thor's magic was absorbed completely.
"YEAH—!!!"
With a triumphant roar, Tony shot into the sky.
The Destroyer Armor blasted upward without any visible thrusters, soaring freely through the air.
He raised one hand.
Blue lightning immediately burst from his palm.
Thunder rolled continuously as he manipulated the lightning exactly like Thor.
Then blazing flames erupted from his other hand.
Orange-red fire exploded through the sky like artillery shells.
The terrifying heat was enough to melt metal in an instant.
Everyone on the ground stared in astonishment.
Tony now looked like some bizarre fusion of Thor and Karl.
Nobody had expected the man who worshiped science above all else to suddenly start using magic.
"What's going on?!"
Pepper and Rhodey had rushed over after hearing the commotion.
They stared at Tony, who was happily showing off in the sky.
"Tony's... uh... old armor?"
Karl hesitated.
Calling it a new suit felt wrong—it had been built quite some time ago.
Calling it an old suit also felt wrong because Tony had never actually used it before.
It was hard to categorize.
"F***! Since when did this guy have armor this cool? The War Machine program officially protests!"
Rhodey's eyes turned red with envy.
He looked ready to shoot Tony out of the sky and steal the armor for himself.
---
Three days later.
A Quinjet landed in the plaza.
Four people stepped out.
Two men and two women.
One wore ten rings around his wrists, each engraved with mysterious glowing symbols.
Another carried a rope dart across her chest, the dragon scales along it shining brilliantly.
It was Shang-Chi and Xu Xialing, who had left Ta Lo after learning of the coming crisis.
The other two wore matching suits, one red and one blue, both with distinctive helmets.
Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne.
Since all four were already familiar with everyone present, they skipped the formalities and immediately asked about the current situation.
"Scott, where've you been lately?"
Sam asked curiously.
Scott had vanished for quite some time, and nobody had been able to contact him.
Scott looked embarrassed.
"Uh... there was a small problem during an experiment. I got trapped in the Quantum Realm."
It was an experience he had absolutely no desire to revisit.
The portal device had malfunctioned at the worst possible moment.
Scott had already entered the passage when everything went wrong.
Hope and Hank had panicked.
Even after repairing the device, finding Scott's coordinates proved nearly impossible.
Once the system crashed, the original target coordinates became useless.
Scott could have ended up literally anywhere.
After countless sleepless days of research, Hank and Hope finally managed to locate Scott's Ant-Man suit and bring him back.
When Scott finally returned, the first thing he saw was a pair of people who looked like exhausted vagrants.
Especially Hope.
She had nearly driven herself insane searching for him.
Had Scott not returned safely, she might have followed him into the Quantum Realm herself.
Fortunately, everything ended well.
Scott had even discovered Hope's mother, Janet van Dyne—the original Wasp—inside the Quantum Realm and brought back the good news.
---
Meanwhile, Shang-Chi and Xialing were immediately dragged away by Gwen.
More accurately, Shuri was the ringleader.
A group of science fanatics had gathered around Shang-Chi's Ten Rings and the dragon-scale weapons and armor.
Shuri led the team, with Gwen, Peter, Rocket, and Tony all crowding around the equipment.
"So this is dragon scale?"
Rocket scanned one of the scales repeatedly with an instrument.
"I've seen plenty of dragon-like creatures, but none of them have scales containing energy this powerful."
The scanner showed massive amounts of energy hidden within the scales.
Unlike most dragon species, whose power felt violent and destructive, this energy was remarkably gentle.
It even carried a sense of serenity.
"These came from our Guardian Dragon in Ta Lo."
Xialing pointed to her armor and rope dart.
"The scale on the dart was personally gifted by the Great Protector."
Her armor was made from polished scales naturally shed by the dragon.
The scale attached to her rope dart, however, had been personally removed by the dragon itself from near one of its foreclaws.
The energy within it was both gentle and incredibly sharp.
It could even pierce dragon-scale armor with ease.
Meanwhile, Tony and Peter were examining Shang-Chi's Ten Rings.
When Tony had first met Shang-Chi, events had moved too quickly for him to properly study them.
"I think the rings are transmitting a weak signal."
Peter studied the readings on a scanner.
When it came to detecting subtle anomalies, his spider-sense was unmatched.
He could feel faint fluctuations coming from the rings.
"A signal?"
Tony immediately turned toward the display.
Peter's comment also attracted Rocket, Shuri, and everyone else.
The group crowded around the Ten Rings.
Shuri placed them on a table and tapped a control bead nearby.
The rings were instantly enlarged through a holographic projection.
The system scanned them from every angle.
It detected the faint signal as well.
Sure enough, one nearly invisible rune on one of the rings was pulsing rhythmically.
It seemed to be broadcasting some kind of transmission.
The signal was weak and intermittent, difficult to track.
If Peter's senses hadn't been extraordinarily sharp, nobody would have noticed it at all.
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