(Location - Starks Lab)
The call came in encrypted, routed through three dead satellites and a WayneTech relay that technically did not exist.
Tony answered it anyway.
Bruce Wayne appeared as a blue hologram in the center of Stark's workshop, cowl already on, white eyes unreadable. No pleasantries. No wasted motion.
"I saw the armor come online," Batman said. "CMC powered combat suit. Terran-inspired. Brutal. Effective."
Tony smirked faintly. "You always know how to make a guy feel appreciated."
"This isn't flattery," Bruce replied. "It's assessment. And assessment says you can't build these one at a time."
Tony leaned back against a workbench, arms crossing. "That was my next sentence, actually."
They let the silence hang for a moment, two minds calibrating.
"Mars," Bruce continued. "Distance. Supply lag. Attrition. You won't have time to ship completed units from Earth, even with jump-capable carriers."
"I know," Tony said. "Which means on-site production. Foundries. Automated assembly. Local resource processing."
"Which you don't have," Bruce said. "Yet."
Tony's eyes lit up. "But Mars does. Iron-rich regolith. Rare metals already exposed by terraforming. We turn the war zone into a factory."
Bruce nodded once. "Barracks."
Tony blinked. "You're thinking living infrastructure."
"Living and learning," Bruce corrected. "Soldiers won't have years to train. Traditional instruction is useless when the enemy adapts faster than human reflex."
Tony straightened. "You're thinking accelerated conditioning."
"I'm thinking VR," Bruce said. "But not entertainment-grade. Combat cognition imprinting. Muscle memory injection."
Tony whistled softly. "Ten minutes."
Bruce's gaze sharpened. "That's the target."
Tony pulled up a schematic midair. A massive subterranean structure carved directly into Martian bedrock.
"Barracks below the surface," Tony said, fingers flying. "Radiation shielding. Zerg-resistant bulkheads. Modular bays for suit storage and repair."
"And training pods," Bruce added. "Hundreds of them. Soldiers step in green. Step out competent."
Tony frowned thoughtfully. "Not brainwashing. Can't cross that line."
Bruce inclined his head slightly. "Agreed. No personality overwrite. Just operational familiarity. Controls. Movement. Threat recognition."
Tony snapped his fingers. "We build it like a language immersion. Drop them into simulated combat environments that mirror Mars exactly. Zerg behavior patterns updated in real time."
"And failure," Bruce said. "They need to fail safely."
Tony nodded. "Over and over. Die a thousand times in simulation so they don't freeze the first time it happens for real."
Bruce brought up a second overlay. A neural interface diagram.
"The CMC armor already uses assisted movement," he said. "Tie the VR pods directly into that framework. The body learns with the suit, not separately from it."
Tony stared at the projection, then laughed quietly. "You know, for a guy who pretends not to like power armor, you're designing a hell of a system."
"I don't like armor," Bruce replied. "I like preparation."
They worked in sync now, ideas stacking faster than either could alone.
Automated assembly lines fed by Martian ore processors.
Barracks carved like ant hives beneath fortified colonies.
VR pods lining the walls like coffins, each one a gateway into controlled hell.
Tony paused, expression sobering. "You realize what this does to warfare."
Bruce did not hesitate. "Yes."
"It changes the cost of training," Tony said. "It lowers the barrier. Anyone can become a frontline soldier in minutes."
"And anyone can die just as fast if we don't do this right," Bruce replied. "The Zerg don't wait for readiness. Neither can we."
Tony exhaled slowly. "We'll need oversight. Ethics boards. Psychological support."
"Already accounted for," Bruce said. "Rotational cooldowns. Post-sim evaluation. No continuous loop exposure."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "You really thought this through."
"I always do."
They stood in silence again, watching the virtual barracks take shape. A city beneath a planet. A forge for humanity's next line of defense.
"Production timeline?" Tony asked.
"If we redirect existing Mars infrastructure," Bruce said, "two weeks for the first operational barracks. Full-scale replication after that."
Tony smiled, sharp and determined. "Then let's give Mars an army that can keep up."
Bruce met his gaze. "This won't stay secret."
Tony shrugged. "Nothing worth building ever does."
The call ended, leaving Tony alone with the humming machinery and the ghost of a plan that would change the course of the war.
Far away, on Mars, automated drills began biting into red stone, carving the first foundations of something new.
Not just armor.
An idea.
And somewhere beyond Earth and Mars, Erik felt it. Not as violence. Not as fear. But as intention.
Humans preparing.
Learning faster.
Refusing to go quietly.
He closed his eyes briefly, listening to the new rhythm forming beneath the universe's song.
"This," he murmured, "is going to be loud."
__________
Two weeks passed.
On Mars, time stopped being measured in days and started being measured in output.
The barracks did not rise above the red surface like monuments. They were carved into it. Entire sections of Martian bedrock were hollowed out and reinforced, layered with alloy ribs and energy shielding until the planet itself became armor. From orbit, nothing looked different. No towering structures. No banners. Just another scarred world fighting to survive.
Below the surface, the barracks lived.
Hundreds of CMC suits stood in vertical racks, dormant giants locked in standby. Their systems hummed softly, synchronized to a central command lattice that pulsed like a mechanical heartbeat. Automated arms moved with tireless precision, slotting new components into place as fast as raw materials could be processed.
Nearby, the VR pods waited.
They were not sleek or elegant. They were utilitarian. Thick-walled capsules lined in rows, each one connected directly to the barracks core and the CMC armor framework. Inside each pod was a neural interface, a biometric harness, and a reality engine calibrated to simulate one thing above all else.
Mars as it truly was.
The first group of soldiers arrived at the barracks just before shift change.
They were not heroes. They were not legends. They were exhausted men and women pulled from collapsing colonies, defensive lines, and half-cleared sectors. Some still had red dust caked into the seams of their armor. Others carried the weight of weeks of loss in the way they moved.
A few stared at the CMC suits in silence.
Others laughed nervously.
"Those things are too big," someone muttered.
"They expect us to pilot that?"
A technician stepped forward. Calm. Efficient. No theatrics.
"You won't pilot it," she said. "You'll move with it."
The soldiers were guided into the training wing.
No speeches. No flags. No ceremony.
Just pods.
One by one, they stepped inside.
The hatches sealed with a heavy, final sound.
Darkness.
Then light.
The simulation hit immediately.
No countdown. No gentle introduction.
They were standing in a ruined Martian colony, alarms screaming, structures half-melted by acid and impact. The ground shook beneath their feet as the Zerg poured in. Fast. Endless. Wrong.
Panic surged.
Then the armor responded.
They felt it before they understood it. The weight of the CMC suit wrapped around their bodies like a second skeleton. Servos moved when they moved. Reinforced joints anticipated motion, corrected posture, stabilized balance.
A HUD flared into existence.
Threat vectors highlighted. Weapon systems mapped. Movement assistance engaged.
The first Zergling lunged.
The soldier did not think.
The suit moved.
A gauntleted fist crushed chitin with terrifying force. The recoil should have broken an arm. It didn't. The suit absorbed it, redistributed it, taught the body how to repeat it.
Another wave hit.
Claws tore across armor plating. The soldier stumbled, fell, died.
The simulation reset instantly.
Same position. Same threat.
No pain. No hesitation.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Ten minutes stretched into something that felt like hours.
The soldiers learned how to move without panic. How to let the suit guide them without surrendering control. How to brace against impact. How to aim heavy weapons without overcorrecting. How to fight as part of a line rather than as individuals.
The simulations adapted.
Zerg tactics changed mid-run. Enemy types varied. Terrain collapsed unexpectedly.
Failure was constant.
So was learning.
In the control room, observers watched biometric readouts climb and stabilize.
Reaction times dropping. Stress responses normalizing. Decision-making improving.
"These numbers shouldn't be possible," one analyst said quietly.
"They are," another replied. "Because they're not memorizing steps. They're learning instinct."
At exactly ten minutes, the pods disengaged.
Hatches opened.
The soldiers stepped out.
They did not cheer.
They did not celebrate.
They stood straighter.
Some flexed their hands slowly, as if feeling something new in their muscles. Others looked at the suits waiting nearby, not with fear anymore, but with understanding.
One soldier broke the silence.
"I know how to fight in that thing," she said.
Another nodded. "Yeah. Me too."
A third swallowed hard. "I died. A lot."
The technician nodded. "Good. Now you won't."
The suits powered up as the soldiers approached.
No hesitation.
No awe.
Just readiness.
Deep beneath Mars, humanity had crossed a line.
Training was no longer a bottleneck. Experience was no longer earned only through loss. The war had found a way to accelerate.
Far from the barracks, in tunnels carved by claws and hunger, the Zerg felt it.
Not the armor. Not the soldiers.
The change.
Patterns shifted. Resistance hardened. Prey learned faster.
The hive adapted.
And somewhere much farther away, Erik felt the ripple pass through the universe's rhythm. Not discordant. Not violent.
Urgent.
Humans were compressing years of growth into minutes.
He opened his eyes slowly.
"That," he whispered, "is going to have consequences."
Erik felt it the moment the first group stepped out of the pods.
Not as pain. Not as fear.
As compression.
He was standing with Lady Death on the balcony of their apartment, the city spread out beneath them like a living circuit board. The night air was calm, but the rhythm beneath it stuttered. A pulse that should have taken months, years, entire lifetimes to form had been folded inward, crushed into something dense and sharp.
Erik's hand tightened on the railing.
"That's new," he said quietly.
Lady Death tilted her head, listening in her own way. "They are accelerating themselves."
"Yes," Erik replied. "But not unnaturally. That is what worries me."
He closed his eyes.
Sound was never just sound to him. It was memory, motion, intention. What the humans on Mars had built was not simply training. It was a feedback loop. Experience without consequence. Death without cost. Learning stripped of time.
He reached out, gently, not toward Mars itself, but toward the resonance it produced.
And he heard it.
Thousands of overlapping heartbeats syncing to artificial rhythms. Neural pathways carving themselves faster than biology ever intended. Muscle memory forming in clean, brutal lines. Fear introduced, then removed, then reintroduced under controlled parameters.
"They're learning how to die correctly," Erik murmured.
Lady Death did not correct him.
"That is… efficient," she said. "And dangerous."
Erik nodded. "They are doing what I once did in the void. Repeating themselves until the shape of failure became familiar enough to survive."
He opened his eyes again, gaze distant.
"But I had eternity," he continued. "They have ten minutes."
The city below them hummed, unaware that somewhere across the solar system, humanity had rewritten one of its oldest limits.
Erik turned inward again, this time focusing on the armor.
The CMC suits were loud.
Not in volume, but in presence. Each one carried the weight of human stubbornness, forged into metal and code. They did not sing the way living things did. They hammered. A steady, defiant beat that pushed back against the universe rather than flowing with it.
He felt a familiar note inside that rhythm.
Tony.
Not the man himself, but his intent. The same sharp resolve Erik had sensed before. Build. Prepare. Refuse to yield.
Erik exhaled slowly.
"They are not waiting for the universe to make room for them," he said. "They are making their own."
Lady Death smiled faintly. "That has always been their greatest flaw. And their greatest strength."
Erik's brow furrowed. "There is strain."
"On the soldiers?"
"On reality," Erik corrected.
He reached deeper, listening past the armor, past the VR loops, past the barracks carved into Martian stone. He listened to the afterimage left behind when the simulations ended.
Echoes of battles that never happened. Deaths that were remembered but never lived. Instincts trained against enemies that adapted in real time.
"Those experiences don't vanish when the pod opens," Erik said softly. "They linger. In dreams. In reflex. In how they perceive danger."
Lady Death leaned beside him, her presence steady. "You sound concerned."
"I am," he admitted. "Not because they are wrong. But because they are becoming… sharp."
He paused, choosing his next words carefully.
"Sound that sharp can cut the one who makes it."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Erik straightened slightly.
"But it is not my place to stop them."
Lady Death glanced at him. "You could."
"Yes," he said. "And that is exactly why I won't."
He rested his palms on the railing, grounding himself.
"What I can do," he continued, "is listen. And adjust. If the rhythm becomes too brittle, it will fracture. Someone needs to hear that before it happens."
Lady Death's expression softened. "So you will watch."
"I will watch," Erik agreed. "And if necessary… I will remind them that growth does not have to mean pain alone."
Far away, on Mars, a newly trained soldier stepped into a CMC suit for the first time outside a simulation. Her movements were confident. Too confident. But effective.
The suit responded instantly.
The war adapted.
And in the vast, unseen layers of existence, Erik listened as humanity's song grew faster, heavier, and more complex than ever before.
Not broken.
Not yet.
But no longer simple.
__________
__________
And thats it for today., hope you all enjoyed it.
Quick question: if i started a patreon and uploaded advanced chapters would you guys join?
Anyway, any questions or concerns leave a comment. And Send some powerstones we are close to being in the 200 rankings. Thank you all again.