The sound of metal hitting metal echoed through the damp cave. Clang. Clang. Clang.
It was a rhythm of desperation.
Tony Stark stood hunched over a crude workbench, sweat dripping from his nose onto the hot steel. His chest heaved. The car battery hooked to the electromagnet in his chest hummed—a constant, sickly reminder of the shrapnel inching toward his heart.
"Steady, Tony. Steady," Yinsen whispered, holding the tongs. "We have maybe two days before they realize it is not a missile."
Tony didn't answer. He just wiped the grease from his eyes and kept hammering. He looked like a man running out of time.
But in the darkest corner of the cell, ten feet away, there was another rhythm.
Down. Up. Down. Up.
Ren was there.
He wasn't building a bomb. He wasn't crying. He was upside down, his entire body weight balanced on the tip of his right thumb.
He was twenty-one years old, though the grime on his face made him look older. He had been here for two months—captured in the same ambush that took Stark. But unlike Stark, the terrorists ignored him. They saw a skinny kid in a suit, a nobody, an "extra." They threw him in the cell and forgot he existed.
That was their mistake.
Ren closed his eyes. He didn't feel the cold stone floor. He felt the physics of his own body.
Current Load: 185 lbs.
Stress Point: Right Phalanx.
He lowered himself until his nose brushed the dirty floor, then pushed back up. He didn't wobble. His body was a rigid line of steel.
He had been doing this for six hours.
A normal human would have collapsed. Their muscles would have torn, their lactic acid would have burned them into shock. But Ren didn't sweat. His breathing was slow and even, like he was sleeping.
Crack.
A sharp sound came from his thumb. A micro-fracture. The bone had finally given up under the pressure.
Ren didn't flinch. He mentally welcomed the pain.
There it is.
A split second later, a wave of heat washed over his hand. It wasn't the heat of a fire; it was the heavy, golden warmth of molten evolution. It flooded the broken bone, filling the cracks, knitting the calcium back together—but denser. Harder.
[ALERT: BONE DENSITY UPGRADE]
> Status: Reinforced (Iron-Like)
> Progress to Tier 1: 98%
Ren opened his eyes. A faint blue pane of glass floated in the air, visible only to him. He watched the numbers tick up.
He flipped off his thumb, landing silently on his feet. He rotated his wrist. Pop. It felt heavy, like his hand was now made of lead.
Across the room, the hammering stopped.
Tony Stark was staring at him. The billionaire genius looked exhausted, his eyes haunted, but right now, he looked confused.
"You..." Tony's voice was raspy. He coughed, pointing a greasy finger at Ren. "You haven't slept in three days. I've been counting."
Ren adjusted the sleeves of his tattered dress shirt. He looked calm, almost bored, as if he were in a library and not a death camp.
"Sleep is inefficient," Ren said. His voice was smooth, unused to the dry air.
"Inefficient?" Tony let out a short, hysterical laugh. "Kid, we're in a cave. We're eating rotten bread. Everything is inefficient."
Yinsen looked up from the fire, adjusting his glasses. "Leave him be, Tony. He copes in his own way."
"Coping? That's not coping," Tony muttered, turning back to his suit. "That's... something else."
Ren ignored them. He didn't need to explain.
He walked to the heavy iron door of the cell. He placed his ear against the cold metal.
[SKILL: SENSORY FOCUS]
The world slowed down. The ambient noise—the dripping water, the hum of the battery, Tony's breathing—faded away.
Through the thick steel, he heard footsteps.
Three men.
Boots on gravel.
Heart rates: Elevated.
Smell: Unwashed sweat and cheap tobacco.
"They're coming," Ren said softly.
Tony froze. "Who? The guards? It's not feeding time."
"Inspection," Ren clarified. He stepped back from the door, his posture relaxing into a deceptive slump. He let his shoulders drop, hiding the dense, coiled muscle underneath his shirt. He looked harmless again. "Hide the blueprints, Stark. You have ten seconds."
Tony scrambled. He threw a dirty tarp over the Mark 1 armor pieces, scattering fake diagrams of the Jericho missile on top. Yinsen kicked dust over the tools.
Clank. Screech.
The viewing slot on the iron door slid open. A pair of dark, angry eyes peered in. It was Raza, the leader of the Ten Rings.
"Stark!" Raza shouted in Arabic, then switched to broken English. "Show me. Progress."
"It's... it's coming along!" Tony stammered, holding up a piece of the missile fin. "Complex. Very complex."
Raza's eyes narrowed. He scanned the room. He looked at Yinsen. Then, his gaze drifted to the corner.
He looked at Ren.
Ren was sitting on a crate, reading a tattered book he had found in the trash. He didn't look up. He turned a page.
Raza scoffed. To him, Ren was just livestock. A hostage with no ransom value, kept alive only because he hadn't caused trouble.
"Open the door," Raza commanded his guards.
Click-thud.
The heavy lock disengaged. The door groaned open. Raza stepped in, flanked by two men with AK-47s.
The air in the cave changed. The smell of danger was sharp.
Raza walked past Tony, ignoring the billionaire. He walked straight to Ren. He kicked the crate out from under him.
Ren stood up smoothly before the crate hit the ground. He didn't look angry. He looked at Raza's neck.
Jugular vein: Exposed.
Carotid artery: Pulse rapid.
Distance: 0.5 meters.
"You," Raza spat, poking Ren in the chest with a gloved finger. "You do nothing. You eat my food. You take up space."
Ren looked at the finger poking his chest. It felt like a marshmallow pushing against a steel wall.
"I am waiting," Ren said.
"Waiting for what?" Raza laughed. He turned to his men. "Maybe we shoot him? Make Stark work faster?"
One of the guards leveled his rifle at Ren's head.
Tony stepped forward, his hands raised. "Hey! Wait! He's... he's my assistant! I need him! To hold... things."
Raza sneered. He turned back to Ren, raising his hand to slap the young man across the face. A lesson in dominance.
Ren watched the hand coming.
To anyone else, it was a slap.
To Ren, it was moving through molasses.
Observation:
Velocity: Slow.
Form: Pathetic.
Outcome: Irrelevant.
Ren didn't dodge. He let the slap land.
THWACK.
Raza's hand connected with Ren's jaw.
Raza howled. He pulled his hand back, clutching it. It wasn't like hitting a face; it was like slapping a granite statue. His fingers were red and throbbing.
Ren's head hadn't moved an inch. Not a millimeter.
Slowly, Ren turned his gaze back to Raza. His eyes were devoid of fear. They were surgical.
"Are you done?" Ren asked.
Silence filled the cave. The guard with the rifle hesitated, confused by the scene. Why wasn't the kid crying? Why was the boss holding his hand?
Raza stepped back, a flicker of genuine fear in his eyes. He looked at Ren—really looked at him—and realized that the "extra" in the corner wasn't a sheep.
He was a wolf waiting for the cage to open.
"Tomorrow," Raza hissed, backing out of the cell. "Tomorrow is the deadline. If the missile is not done, everyone dies."
He slammed the door shut. CLANG. The lock turned.
Ren listened to their footsteps fade away. Then, he rolled his neck. Crack.
"You're insane," Tony whispered, staring at him. "You just let him hit you. He could have shot you."
Ren picked up his book from the floor. He dusted it off.
"He couldn't," Ren said simply. He walked back to his corner and assumed the position. One thumb on the ground. Legs in the air.
"Why not?" Yinsen asked, his voice trembling.
Ren lowered himself. Down.
"Because," Ren said, his voice echoing from the shadows. "Before his finger could pull the trigger, I would have removed his throat."
He pushed back up. Up.
[STATUS UPDATE]
> Tier 1 (Super Soldier): 99%
> 1 Hour until Completion.
"Get back to work, Stark," Ren said. "Tomorrow, we leave."