If you don't show off, it's like wearing brocade in the dead of night—no one sees it.
Leon Ragnell smiled. "So? How was that?"
Tony drew a long breath and stuck up a thumb. "Strong."
"Let's go."
Leon grinned, body blurring—his speed snapped past belief. Even with the suit pouring out power, Tony couldn't keep up; he could only watch Leon vanish from sight.
"He… just broke physics," Tony muttered, half in awe.
Ever since meeting Leon, his worldview had been on a rolling reboot.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
By the time Tony reached Leon's place, Leon was devouring dinner.
A Saiyan's stomach was a bottomless pit.
"Leon!"
Tony joined in without hesitation. Watching Leon eat made him hungry by proxy. Eventually, though, his own stomach tapped out. He eyed Leon—still packing food away—and said, "Day after tomorrow there's a gathering of scientists. I want you there."
"Sure," Leon said, simple as that.
Might as well go take a look.
Dragon Ball tech and Marvel tech could cross-pollinate in plenty of ways.
Bottom line: for all the cells he'd grafted and mastered, back in the Dragon Ball world Leon was a bona fide scientist.
…
…
Stratosphere, tens of thousands of meters up.
A colossal, future-tech Helicarrier floated like a phantom citadel between cloud layers, using advanced anti-gravity drives and optical camouflage.
This was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top command node—the Project Insight Helicarrier.
In the core bridge, Director Nick Fury stood silent before a wall-filling main display.
His lone eye bored into the footage looping again and again—heavy with something he rarely allowed himself to feel: dread… and shock.
On screen: the moment, barely ten minutes ago, when Leon lifted two fingers.
The feed came from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s highest-cleared "Sky-Eye" recon satellite in low Earth orbit—resolution sharp enough to read a headline on a newspaper from space.
At a thousand frames per second, it dissected a "battle" that detonated everything Fury thought he knew.
In the frame, Leon raised two fingers. Calmly.
Yes—two fingers.
And then everything alive within nearly a kilometer was erased.
The energy bloom measured a cylinder roughly a kilometer across and a kilometer high.
Buildings, life—gone.
Correction: not everything. One man stood untouched: Tony Stark.
The violent surge had curved around Tony—and even spared the flowers and grass under his boots.
How terrifying was that?
Control at that level bordered on casual artistry.
This man…
Was too strong.
Stark's Iron Man armor still lived within Fury's comprehension. Leon didn't.
Fury watched the clip again. And again. And again. Nothing "special" to grasp onto.
He'd merely… hooked his fingers.
And then—
Mass devastation.
"At the instant he moved his fingers, we detected an energy spike," the ship's tactical A.I. said in Fury's ear. "The energy reservoir is internal—stored within the subject known as Leon."
"All that… inside his body?" Fury murmured, rattled.
"Negative. Our analysis indicates an even larger energy reserve within him. The output just observed was less than one-thousandth of total capacity."
"…What the f—?"
Fury's pulse spiked. None of it made sense.
How could a human body warehouse that much power?
He thought of one person: Captain Marvel.
Maybe only Carol could replicate that kind of trick.
Leon, meanwhile, was a ghost. No paper trail on when he appeared, no file on how he linked up with Stark…
Fury glanced back at the still frame.
That was—quite clearly—a tail.
No…
Fury fell into a long, grim silence.
Even Carol couldn't do that.
"Hill," Fury said at last, turning to his deputy.
Maria Hill drew a steadying breath. She felt the tremor behind his stoicism—the primordial fear of the unknown.
This "Leon" was no ordinary man.
"Effective immediately, elevate Leon's threat designation to Alpha-Level," Fury ordered.
"And classify everything on him Top Secret — S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only."
"And…" He paused, light shifting in the single eye. "Recall Black Widow. I want our best operative embedded at any cost."
"I have to know who he is, where he came from… and what, exactly, has happened to his body."
(End of Chapter)
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