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"Actually, I am Iron Man."
"I am Iron Man."
"Iron Man."
"Man!!"
"Do you have to keep replaying that damn interview?!" Tony finally reached his limit, snatching the remote from Kael's hand and killing the TV with a frustrated click.
"Wow~ That was the highlight of your life, Tony. What's wrong with me helping you relive the glory properly?" Kael offered a sharp, cat-like grin, looking up at Tony's deadpan face.
Previously, Tony had felt no regret about revealing his identity as Iron Man—even with the inevitable criticism and chaos it invited. But now, facing Kael, he felt a flicker of genuine remorse. He had a sinking premonition that this highlight would become an indelible shadow over his existence, all thanks to the "Calculated Sadism" of his friend.
The term remix or brainrot hadn't quite hit the mainstream yet, but after Kael's looping and precision editing—coupled with Tony's celebrity status—it was destined to go viral.
"Tony, you brought this on yourself," Pepper noted from the side, a playful smirk dancing on her lips. Kael gave her a silent thumbs-up.
It was the truth. If Tony had followed the script Rhodey and the Stark PR team provided, he could have ghosted the entire Middle East incident with a simple denial. But Tony, being Tony, blurted out the truth to a sea of cameras. Now, public opinion was a runaway train.
While a city-level battle with Obadiah had been avoided thanks to Kael's infiltration, Tony's mission to zero the black-market Stark weapons had already put the "Iron Man" image on every screen across the globe. Speculation was boiling over: Tony Stark, the legendary playboy, as a superhero? The contrast was too jarring for most to swallow.
"Is it trouble? I just stated a fact," Tony said stubbornly, refusing to admit he felt the weight of the target he'd just painted on his own back.
"Right, right, right. Tony is correct. I am—"
Kael didn't finish the line; Tony had already raised a warning finger. He looked like a frustrated husky ready to snap. "I don't want to hear those four words for a whole year, Kael! Delete them from your cache immediately!"
Kael didn't reply. He simply raised his right hand, palm open, fingers splayed. The iconic silhouette of a certain repulsor-blast was unmistakable.
"I knew you wouldn't be idle," Tony grumbled. He reached into his coat and produced a second-generation Arc Reactor—the energy holy grail Kael had been hunting. Kael had arrived at the villa at dawn just to collect on the debt.
"My dear Tony, I have no idea what you're talking about. But look at this reactor... it's beautiful enough to make me forget Victoria's Secret." Kael breathed warm air onto the device and polished it gently on his shirt.
"From now on, the catchphrase is forbidden. Understood?" Tony clapped Kael's shoulder with a force that felt a lot like a 'Gorilla Arm' punch.
"Which catchphrase?" Kael asked with an innocent, wide-eyed look.
"Good." Tony nodded, finally relaxing. "Now, how's the Iron Monger prototype you 'liberated' from the Evidence Locker? Any progress?"
"Hehe. It's not an Iron Monger anymore, Tony. You can call it the Vajra Titan."
After Obadiah's fall, his assets had been devoured by Tony and the military. Kael's share—his "technical dividend" for providing smart-weapon specs to the Pentagon—included a one-percent stake in Stark Industries and the heavy Monger chassis. Tony had already scrubbed the AI and sold the manufacturing rights for the smart-pistols to the military (minus F.R.I.D.A.Y., of course), so the tech was "clean."
The most valuable part of the Monger wasn't the outdated code, but the chassis. Obadiah had used rare, high-density alloys to build an indestructible shell. Kael had spent the last week disassembling the monster and integrating it with his Pilot-exoskeleton frame. He'd forged a small Titan, and now he finally had the heart to beat inside it.
"Vajra Titan?" Tony smacked his lips. "A bit grandiose, don't you think? Let's see if it holds up in the field."
"I'm game," Kael smiled. He didn't want his masterpiece gathering dust in a Delamain warehouse. "But let's get one thing clear: if I scrap your Mark III, I'm not paying for the repairs."
"It'll just be deducted from your salary, Director Wayne."
"Wicked capitalist."
"For that, your monthly bonus is gone."
Tony's weapon testing ground on the outskirts of the city was a desolate stretch of reinforced concrete.
Tony was already suited up in the Mark III, his face plate still open. "So, where is this 'Daddy' of yours?"
"Patience, Tony. He's arriving via courier."
A heavy, unmanned transport truck pulled up. Kael opened the rear compartment to reveal a matte-black, four-meter-tall behemoth curled into a fetal position. It looked like a sleeping god of iron. Kael stepped inside and slotted the Arc Reactor into the internal bay.
"System booting..."
The Titan's visual sensor—a glowing blue aperture—whirred into focus. High-grade energy flooded the chassis like pressurized blood.
"Master, how may I assist you?" F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s voice pulsed from the Titan's speakers.
Kael used his Jump Kit to leap into the palm of the Titan and entered the cockpit. "Neural connection in progress..."
The Vajra Titan was a hybrid. It used the Project King Kong gravity-manipulators Kael had stolen from Arasaka, integrated with the kinetic thrusters of a Titanfall unit. It was twice the size of the Mark III—the literal difference between a father and a son.
"Tony, are you ready to become a flatline?" Kael's voice, now distorted by a heavy metallic reverb, boomed from the machine.
"Bring it," Tony replied, snapping his mask shut.
Kael didn't wait. The Titan's gravity devices flared, and the kinetic movement system engaged. The four-ton machine covered fifty meters in a heartbeat, closing the gap before Tony could even register the movement.
So fast!! Tony's internal sensors screamed.
Arc-pulses were great for high-speed flight, but they required a warm-up. At short range, the Titan was a blur. Kael grabbed the Mark III by its neck and slammed it into the concrete with a bone-rattling CRASH.
Tony groaned as the impact overwhelmed his dampeners. He fired a point-blank repulsor blast from his palm, the recoil pushing him out of the Titan's reach. He tried to take off, but Kael's reaction was terrifying.
The Titan snatched Tony's foot out of the air and slammed him back down.
How?! Tony realized that Kael's neural-sync was near-perfect. There was no lag. Kael wasn't "driving" the machine; he was the machine. He had even integrated a simplified Sandevistan logic-gate, giving the Titan a ten-percent reflex amplification.
Tony was dizzy. His plan to use "technical maneuvers" to make Kael look like a rookie had failed spectacularly. Kael pinned the Mark III to the ground, increasing the local gravity output until the concrete began to crack.
"Pause! PAUSE!" Tony shouted through the comms.
"Giving up already, choomba?"
"Who's giving up? I'm calling a tactical timeout!"
"For how long?"
"Let's say... a month. I need to calibrate... something." Tony's voice was wounded, his genius ego taking a direct hit. He'd seen the Iron Monger blueprints; he should have dominated. But Kael had brought the lethal innovations of Night City and the Frontier to the fight.
Tony looked at the matte-black giant standing over him and sighed. He was the world's number one genius, but he was starting to realize Kael Wayne was playing a completely different game.
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