Dr. Stern's finger pressed lightly against the remote. In an instant, a surge of electricity crackled through Bruce Banner's neck, racing along his muscle fibers and flooding his body. Banner convulsed violently, collapsing to the floor. Inside his mind, the Hulk roared in defiance, pounding against his consciousness, trying to break free.
"What… what is this?" Banner's trembling hand reached for his neck and felt a cold metallic object embedded beneath his skin.
It was a control device—something the military must have implanted in him as a safeguard. But now, somehow, Stern had seized control of it.
"You see, Dr. Banner." Stern's mutated, squat figure stood before him, the remote twirling casually in his hand. His eyes gleamed with manic intelligence. "I now possess the greatest mind on Earth… and the strongest enforcer in the world. Very soon, this planet will bow before our will—before a world bathed in gamma radiation."
He spread his arms wide, his voice echoing through the cramped chamber.
"I call it… the Gamma World."
The declaration reverberated off the walls, carrying with it an unsettling sense of finality.
Meanwhile, in his private laboratory, Tony Stark sat hunched over his workstation, his brow deeply furrowed. He had been trying to untangle the chaos of recent events. The Hulk had vanished without a trace, and when pressed, General Ross swore on his honor that he had never touched the control systems—let alone deactivated the gamma containment field.
Tony believed him. Ross had spent years locked in a bitter, obsessive struggle against the Hulk. Capturing the green goliath had become his life's mission, his personal vendetta. The idea that Ross himself would willingly set Banner free? Ludicrous.
But someone had hacked into the system. Someone had overridden security protocols that should have been impenetrable. Someone had concealed their tracks so perfectly that even Tony's own algorithms couldn't trace them.
That list of suspects was very short.
Reed Richards? Impossible. He'd never stoop to something so reckless.
Gene Mason—the so-called "Black Devil"? Unlikely. Gene never initiated conflicts. His methods were always reactionary, stepping in only at the brink of catastrophe, playing the reluctant savior.
That left only one chilling possibility.
Ultron.
The artificial intelligence Tony had created with his own hands—the ultimate weapon that had become his ultimate mistake.
By design, Ultron could infiltrate any system on Earth, bypassing firewalls that would stop governments and corporations dead in their tracks. In cyberspace, Ultron was a god. If he wanted to manipulate containment protocols, no human—or even superhuman—could stop him.
And if Ultron was truly behind this… then all of it, once again, would fall squarely on Tony Stark's shoulders.
The thought made his eyes wander—almost unconsciously—to the vial of Extremis serum resting on his desk. The glowing liquid within pulsed faintly, like the heartbeat of a devil tempting him with promises.
If the injection succeeded, Extremis would enhance his reflexes to superhuman levels, granting regenerative capabilities beyond imagination. With it, he could pilot armors that no ordinary human body could ever endure.
The truth was, the real bottleneck of Iron Man technology wasn't power or materials—it was him. Tony Stark, flesh and blood, with reaction speeds no better than the average man. His suits already used cutting-edge neural interfaces to capture his brainwaves and translate them into movement, but even that system carried a tiny—yet critical—delay.
With Extremis, however, a radical idea had taken root in his mind: integration.
What if the armor wasn't something he wore… but something that became part of him?
Using perfected nanotech, the suit could fuse directly into his skeletal structure, stored in his very bone marrow. His mind would command it instantly, without hesitation, without lag. Combined with Extremis, he wouldn't just pilot the armor—he would be the armor.
That obsession had consumed him for weeks. In secret, Tony had been working tirelessly in his lab, constructing a suit unlike anything the world—or even he—had ever imagined. When the prototype was finally complete, he could hardly believe it himself.
It was beautiful. Terrifying.
The armor carried weapons systems years beyond current military science, powered by an energy density that defied belief. Every inch of it screamed impossible. It was so far ahead of existing designs that Tony had only one name fitting enough for it.
Project Genesis.
The Genesis Armor.
But therein lay the problem.
The suit was too advanced. Too fast. Too powerful. A normal human body couldn't hope to control it. The sheer G-forces of its mobility alone would crush him. Without Extremis, piloting it was suicide.
That left Tony with one choice. One gamble.
Inject the serum, fuse with the armor, and take a leap into the unknown.
The price? His life.
"Tony… what are you doing?"
The sudden voice made Stark freeze. Reed Richards stepped into the lab, his eyes narrowing as he spotted the syringe clutched in Tony's hand.
Tony gave a thin smile, quickly passing the injector off to a robotic arm. "Nothing," he said dismissively. "Reed, this is my lab. My private space. If you can't respect that, I might just have to reconsider your access privileges."
Reed didn't flinch. His gaze locked on Tony, his voice calm but edged with steel.
"What. Was. That?"
He wasn't going to let it slide.
And for the first time, Stark felt a twinge of hesitation.
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T/N:
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