Joren pushed open the door, and the morning sunlight spilled in, casting a quiet calm over everything—or at least, it would have, if not for the man leaning against the black Audi with a Starbucks cup in hand.
Happy Hogan wore the expression of someone who'd rather be anywhere else at 6 a.m.—preferably still in bed. "I don't want to be up this early either," his face seemed to say.
But that wasn't what made Joren pause.
The Dodge Challenger he'd parked there the night before? Gone.
The street across was deserted. Not a soul in sight.
"Why are you here so early?" Joren asked, eyes still scanning the empty curb.
"It's the boss's orders," Happy shrugged. "Said to run the tests while your 'biological clock is at its most active.'"
Joren froze mid-step.
"Wait… isn't today Wednesday?"
Happy blinked. "Yeah. So?"
"I have class."
Without a word, Happy pulled a folded slip of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it over. Joren unfolded it—and stared. It was an official sick leave note from the Yale University Health Services, complete with the clinic's seal and the school doctor's signature.
Acute gastroenteritis. Bed rest required for 24 hours.
Joren sighed. Of course. That rich, conniving genius really did have fingers in every pie.
"Couldn't you wait until I had a holiday?" he muttered. "Does it have to be this urgent?"
Happy recited Tony's words with the practiced monotone of a man who'd repeated them too many times already: "'Science waits for no one—and inspiration waits for no one even more.'"
He paused, then added, "Also… he didn't sleep at all last night. Currently on his fourteenth cup of coffee in the lab."
Joren rubbed his temples.
Some things never changed.
Trouble was still trouble—even when it came with a designer suit and a private jet.
...
The 79th floor of Stark Tower housed a private laboratory—off-limits to everyone except the man who owned the building, and now, apparently, one very reluctant guest.
As soon as the elevator doors slid open, a rich, bitter aroma of coffee rolled out like a welcome mat.
Tony Stark stood bathed in the cool glow of a holographic display, cradling a mug that proudly declared "World's Best Boss."
He wore the same rumpled black T-shirt as yesterday, his hair sticking up in chaotic tufts like he'd been dragged backward through a time vortex—or struck by lightning. His eyes were bloodshot, but they burned with terrifying, electric excitement.
"Oh, my little sun has arrived!" he announced, spinning around with a grin that belonged more to a mad scientist than a billionaire playboy.
"You won't believe it—I spent twelve straight hours knee-deep in energy physics. Re-derived Einstein's mass-energy equivalence from scratch. Wrote three theoretical papers on forms of energy nobody's even named yet!"
He downed the last of his coffee in one gulp and slammed the empty mug onto the lab table.
"JARVIS! Another one—double espresso!"
"Sir," the AI intoned smoothly, "your caffeine intake has exceeded the recommended safe limit by over 40—"
"Spare me the lecture! Today, we're witnessing the greatest scientific discovery in human history!"
Joren Joestar—glanced around the lab with mild exasperation.
The entire space had been transformed into a sci-fi fever dream.
Seven different energy-detection rigs encircled a central transparent chamber, their cables snaking across the floor like metallic vines. Wall-mounted screens flickered with cascading data: spectral waveforms, quantum readouts, biofield anomalies. It looked less like a lab and more like the bridge of a starship seconds from warp.
"Took me all night to calibrate this setup," Tony said, clapping his hands like an overeager child. "Gamma ray detector, quantum energy analyzer, bioelectric field scanner—and that thing over there? Yeah, I rebuilt a mini particle collider in my sleep. Probably."
Yeah, yeah…
This guy's completely lost it.
"All I need," Tony continued, pointing to the glass chamber, "is for you to step inside and release that golden energy you used—wait, was it last night or the night before? Doesn't matter. Just let it flow naturally from your body."
"And then?" Joren asked flatly.
"And then," Tony's eyes gleamed, "I'll finally know what the hell that power is.
Is it an unknown radiation signature? A bioelectric mutation? Or…" He leaned in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "...a form of energy that transcends known physics entirely?"
Joren sighed inwardly. Might as well get this over with.
He walked to the chamber. The glass doors hissed open at his approach, and he stepped inside without hesitation.
"Perfect! JARVIS—start recording!"
The instruments hummed to life in unison, sensors glowing as they locked onto their target.
Joren closed his eyes.
From deep within his core, Ripple energy surged.
Golden light pulsed through his veins like liquid sunlight, spilling from his skin in gentle, rhythmic waves. The chamber filled with a warm, luminous glow—soft, alive, humming with silent power.
Tony stared, slack-jawed, at the main display.
"This… this is impossible."
The gamma detector read zero.
The quantum analyzer showed a flat baseline.
The bioelectric scanner detected no abnormal EM activity whatsoever.
And yet—his own eyes didn't lie. The boy was radiating light. Pure, golden radiance, pulsing like a heartbeat made visible.
"JARVIS! Run diagnostics! There's gotta be a glitch!"
"All systems operational, sir. Sensors are calibrated and functioning within normal parameters."
"However… current readings indicate no measurable energy emission from Mr. Joestar's body."
Tony's expression cycled rapidly: excitement → confusion → disbelief → dawning horror.
"That means…" he whispered, "this energy doesn't interact with any known physical field. It's… outside the framework."
He lunged for another console, fingers flying over controls.
"Or—wait. What if it's not energy at all?"
Joren kept the Ripple flowing, but he could feel Tony's gaze sharpen—like a scalpel tracing the edge of truth.
Then, suddenly, Tony froze.
He turned slowly, eyes locking onto Joren with terrifying clarity.
"I just remembered a word."
Oh no.
"Vitality." Tony enunciated each syllable like it was a revelation. "You're not emitting energy… you're radiating life force itself."
The Ripple ceased instantly.
The golden light vanished. The chamber returned to sterile transparency.
But Tony? Tony was already gone—spiraling into the kind of epiphany only geniuses and lunatics understand.
"That's why the sensors picked up nothing! Vitality isn't electromagnetic. It's not thermal, kinetic, or quantum. It's… biological will. The soul made manifest. The projection of human spirit into physical reality!"
Joren turned fully now, meeting Tony's fever-bright eyes with calm, unreadable intensity.
Tony Stark had just brushed fingertips with the true essence of the Ripple.
And that… was far, far worse than Joren had anticipated.
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