TPM Chapter 131 – The Core of Power
By the following day, the workshop was no longer quiet and empty. Inside, tools and half-finished schematics floated in the air like restless ghosts. The skeletal frames, once suspended in neat rows, now bore crude reinforcements and clumsy stabilisers where Anton and Ivan had wrestled with alien alloys.
From the elevator, Luthar descended in silence, his red-and-gold robes trailing across the floor. He paused to watch the two Vankos at work. Anton was hunched over a spinal joint, muttering equations into his battered notebook, while Ivan scrolled through a holographic schematic with growing frustration.
"Weight distribution is a complete nightmare," Ivan muttered. "Without AI to self-correct, the pilot's going to topple over."
Anton grunted without looking up. "Stop complaining. We'll make it work."
Luthar's voice cut through the air, cold and precise. "Well, it looks like you have started your work. If there is anything you want to know, you can tell me now."
Anton wiped his hands. "The reinforced spine can carry the reactor's weight now. It won't collapse outright."
Ivan crossed his arms, scowling. "But balance is still garbage. These things stumble like drunk oxen."
"Then integrate gravitic emitters with a gyroscopic stabilisation system," Luthar said, stepping closer. His mechadendrites flexed as they traced the skeletal frame. "If you can't even do this small work, then I can only replace you."
Above them, Lily sat cross-legged on a hovering drone, swinging her legs. "Don't mind him. That's just how he says 'good job'~."
She tapped a control, and a tray unfolded with sandwiches, lowering between the Vankos. "Eat something before you starve. Starving engineers don't build doomsuits."
Ivan shot her a glare. "Are you ever serious?"
"Very," Lily said with a grin. "Keeping you alive is serious work."
Luthar ignored them both and snapped his fingers. A hologram flared to life above the platform, revealing a fully assembled exosuit plated in angular armour. Ener-conduits pulsed along its limbs like veins of molten light.
"This is the final frame," he said. "Light enough to manoeuvre across a battlefield. Strong enough to tear apart a tank."
Even Ivan let out a low whistle. "…Okay, that's actually impressive."
Anton circled the projection, noting the wide cavity and reinforced back mount. "You're not using an Arc Reactor… does that mean you've designed something better?"
"Correct." Luthar shifted the hologram to display a cylindrical core, layered with shielding and conduits. "This is the Universal Reactor Core. It can run on almost any fissionable or high-energy material—uranium, plutonium, thorium, even deuterium in emergencies. Under ideal conditions, it will use my own synthetic isotope."
Anton's eyes widened. "A multi-fuel reactor… but feasibility should be low."
Ivan frowned. "If you're using uranium or plutonium, the radiation's going to fry anyone inside the armour. Might as well just build an Arc Reactor."
Luthar's gaze sharpened. "Do not worry about radiation. Exposure will be minimal—barely enough to stain your bones. The core is triple-shielded and stable. It will operate anywhere—Siberia, the Sahara… even Mars. And if a breach occurs—" his tone turned like a blade, "—the consequences will still be minor."
Anton hesitated. "Minor?"
"As long as you don't die instantly," Luthar said flatly, "I have medicine that will scrub the radiation from your body. I intend to keep you useful."
Lily twirled lazily on her drone, grinning. "He means it won't explode and turn you into soup. Probably."
Neither Vanko pressed the issue. Whoever ended up inside the suits would not be them, and as long as Luthar wasn't forcing them to pilot, the danger was someone else's problem.
Anton leaned closer to the projection, awe creeping into his voice. "If we integrate all-day technology with new armour, soldiers wearing this would be unstoppable."
"That is the goal," Luthar said. "You will focus on making the armour usable for ordinary men. And make sure to install internal bombs that can be detonated remotely. This way, if some soldiers rebel, we can just blow them up."
He gave them their orders and turned away, climbing the balcony once more. Lily hopped after him, her drone buzzing like a lazy insect.
From the side, they watched the Vankos return to work. Servo-skulls drifted past like silent predators, exosuit frames swayed gently from their gravitic harnesses, and the entire chamber pulsed with quiet mechanical life.
"What are you going to do next?" Lily asked.
"Go to space and release my ship," Luthar said. "Once I make the necessary upgrades to its engines, in free time we can travel to Mars and deploy essential equipment to initiate the terraforming process."
Her eyes sparkled. "Want me to train them while you're gone?"
"Just monitor them," he said. "I'm assigning you one hundred Skitarii. Their weapons are upgraded, and you'll hold the triggers for their nanobombs."
Lily grinned, bright and mischievous. "Ooh, fun. I hope someone misbehaves so I get to push a button."
"Do not give them a reason to rebel," Luthar warned.
She leaned against the railing with mock innocence. "Don't worry. I won't cause you trouble."
Below, the Vankos bent once more over their sketches and alloys, the clang of their tools echoing like a heartbeat.
The mechanical nursery had begun its work. Soon, its children would learn to walk—and to kill.
Chapter 132 – Awakening the Sleeping Giant
In the heart of the subterranean workshop, the rhythmic clang of tools and the soft hum of gravitic lifts blended into a strange mechanical symphony.
Anton Vanko hunched over a skeletal exosuit frame, tightening a modular joint with trembling hands that were more accustomed to worn Soviet equipment than alien alloys. Beside him, Ivan cross-checked a floating holographic schematic, muttering under his breath.
"This actuator weight distribution is insane," Ivan said, dragging his fingers through the projection. "Without an AI to self-balance, the pilot's gonna have a very hard time."
Anton grunted. "Let's just do what we can."
Hovering a meter above the workshop floor on her maintenance drone, Lily swung her legs playfully, holding a lunch tray. With a tap on the controls, the drone dipped lower until she was just within arm's reach of the Vankos.
"Break time! You need food if you wanna build doom suits," she chirped as small mechanical arm unfolded from the drone, extending the sandwiches right to them
Anton muttered a thanks as he took a sandwich from the drone's arm. He noticed Lily's holo-screen flicker, briefly showing a small spacecraft departing the base.
"Boss has a… big project today."
High above Earth, the Drop-Wing Skimmer slipped silently through the exosphere, its black hull absorbing the starlight. Luthar sat in the cockpit, hands resting on living controls that pulsed with faint light. Earth's curve glimmered blue and white below, while the rusty disc of Mars rose ahead.
Absolute silence. He preferred it that way.
When the Skimmer entered Mars orbit, Luthar activated the storage manifold. Space rippled like disturbed water, bending light until a shadow emerged—a massive, cathedral-like silhouette blotting out the stars.
FronFronting eyes, the Moon-Class Cruiser matematerialisedIts adamantine hull caught the sun in streaks of silver and bronze. Macro-battery arrays lined its flanks like sleeping predators, each barrel large enough to level city blocks. Dorsal lance turrets pointed silently toward the void, while a single prow launch bay yawned open, ready to birth interceptors or torpedo bombers. Gothic spires and sensor masts gave it the appearance of a drifting cathedral—a warship from a universe that knew no peace.
Luthar's voice was a whisper, almost reverent. "Harbinger of Ashes."
A low hum rolled across the void as the ship's reactor cores stirred, thrumming to life. The ship responded to his presence like an old predator waking from hibernation.
He guided the Skimmer into the cavernous prow hangar. Gravity plates rumbled beneath his boots as he stepped into the silent belly of the ship. Dust clung to ancient consoles; this cruiser had slept for years.
Inside the primary engine chamber, Luthar's mechadendrites unfolded, connecting to sealed panels.
"Warp drives stay dead," he muttered. "Too unstable for this reality. You will live on plasma, fission, and fusion."
Sparks flew as conduits were ripped free and replaced with his universal reactor modules, designed to drink from plutonium, thorium, deuterium—anything the galaxy offered
It would be a forge and a fortress, self-sufficient, ready to birth machines of war for any world.
While Luthar happily worked, the world below erupted in alarm.
Every major satellite in low orbit lit up with alerts. A gravitational anomaly spiked near Mars, followed by a massive visual contact.
In the SHIELD command center, Maria Hill's voice was razor-sharp.
"Cross-reference every satellite. I want confirmation."
"It's not a meteor," an analyst said, pale. "Object is… symmetrical. Metallic. It just appeared out of nowhere."
Nick Fury's single eye narrowed as the first composite image appeared on the screen. A cathedral-like warship floated in Mars orbit.
He remembered Tony Stark's reports about Luthar's alleged origins—talks about a future parallel universe of endless war. At the time, Fury had dismissed it as paranoia or alien misdirection. But no Earth-born species would build that, even the aliens he knew would not build something like that.
Fury rubbed his temple."I don't know why this guy just parked a city-sized ship next to Mars, but this is going to be a nightmare for the entire planet."
Across the globe, similar alerts rippled through hidden channels:
NORAD raised orbital defense levels.
The European Space Agency demanded an emergency UN council.
Wakanda's orbital sensors picked up the anomaly, and King T'Chaka himself stared at the hologram in silence.
"This is a ship…" one scientist whispered. "…but nothing like we've ever seen. It's… wrong. Its design doesn't make sense."
Back in the void, Luthar stood on the observation deck of the Harbinger of Ashes, gazing at the silent planet below.
The engines hummed. The reactors stabilized. The dormant guns waited for a command.
Earth would panic. Nations would scramble. SHIELD and Hydra would whisper in fear.
And Luthar?
He didn't care. This was just one more step toward claiming his own forge, a planet that would exist only to help him build the future war machines that would never fail in any universe.
"Soon," he murmured to himself, the hum of the ship echoing his words, "this world will know the song of the forges."
TPM chapter 133 – A Ship in a Fish Tank
In the heart of the subterranean workshop, the metallic hum of machinery filled the air like an endless, patient drumbeat. Above the central platform, a reinforced glass cube glimmered softly under the lights. Inside it, no bigger than a shoebox, rested the Harbinger of Ashes.
Anton Vanko stared at it in absolute silence.
"It's… small," he muttered at last, the words strangled with disbelief.
"That's the Pym Particles," Lily said quickly, tapping her drone as if to prove the point. "According to Luthar if this thing showed up at full size, Earth's atmosphere would collapse. I didn't really understand, but based on his serious tone, it must be a terrible thing."
Ivan circled the cube, peering at the intricate miniature cityscape of cathedral spires and weapon emplacements. "That means at full size this would be like A city with engines. And he… he just…" He gestured vaguely at the cube. "…Put it in a fish tank."
"It's not a fish tank," Lily corrected primly. "It's a containment cradle with quantum-stability fields. If we put fish inside it, they would die."
Anton ignored her, his gaze drifting toward the floating holo-screens nearby. They showed a collage of the Earth's reaction:
A panicked newscaster shouting about "the sudden appearance and disappearance of an unidentified megastructure near Mars."
Internet conspiracy forums are exploding with theories—aliens, gods, secret human megastructures, and one very popular meme of Luthar edited as a "Space Pope" raising a cathedral ship with divine light.
Anton actually snorted. "How did the people figure out it was Luthar?"
Ivan scrolled through the feed on the drone's display, his voice dry. " Who knows if not for every news channel shouting about a spaceship around Mars, I wouldn't even believe this is a spaceship."
Lily dangled a sandwich from the drone's robotic arm toward Anton. "Food, before you faint from awe."
He towed it absently. His attention was still fixed on the cube.
"This is…" Anton shook his head. "This is beyond any nation. Beyond anything on this planet. Even in the Cold War, the Americans and Soviets only dreamed of controlling orbit." He gestured to the cube."… with this spaceship we would be able to go to other galaxies and collect the material instead of just rotting on Earth."
Ivan, looking at the small spaceship, completely lost his arrogance. He finally tore his eyes away from the cube and muttered, "I don't get it. Even if he can shrink it, how does he plan to use this thing? You can't just park a flying city in space and hope it runs itself?"
Anton nodded slowly, arms crossed. "This thing would at least take thousands to operate. Engineers, gunners, captains…"
Lily spun in lazy circles on her hovering drone, ponytail swaying with each turn. "Oh, he's got that part covered. He's making the crew."
Ivan froze. "…Making. New robots?"
"Not exactly." Lily hopped off her drone and padded toward the cube, tapping the glass per centtttttonately. "Robots can only do so much. A ship like this needs real people… or at least, real enough."
Anton's brow furrowed. "Real… enough?"
"Vat-grown," Lily said cheerfully, as if announcing a lunch special. "Engineered humans. Loyal, durable, and pre-trained. They'll live on the ship, maintain it, and do whatever the boss wants without asking questions and thinking about rebellion all day."
Ivan stared at her. Very beingilted her head, thinking. "Clones, but upgraded. More resistant to radiation, faster learners, and don't get bored easily. Oh, and some of them might have a few extra implants to make them better gunners or engineers. They'll sleep most of the time in stasis pods anyway."
Anton rubbed his temples. "So he's building a fleet, an army… and now a population?"
Lily grinned. "Mhm! It's not just a ship anymore. He is also building equipment for his Forge on Mars. The boss says, a centre without a tech priest is like a cathedral without priests. And he likes cathedrals."
Ivan leaned against the railing, staring at the miniature ship like it might start talking. "So previously he was built in an army now, He's… planning to live up there. To rule from up there."
"Maybe I don't know about that" Lily said, spinning back toward her drone. " But, we have teleportation technology, so living on Mars is easy."
The two Vankos exchanged a long look, the weight of Luthar's plan settling in their chests. It wasn't just technology anymore. It wasn't even about power.
Luthar's was going in a different direction.
As all three of them admire the future on Mars, while in Shield headquarters, Maria Hill's voice was cutting Nick Fury like a knife.
Maria Hill's voice cut through the tension like a blade.
"The object disappeared from all orbital sensors. No heat signature. No debris. But…" She hesitated, swallowing hard. "…we detected a single, smaller craft leaving the area. Luthar's ship."
Nick Fury stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, his single eye narrowing at the hologram of the cathedral-like warship. Even frozen in a still image, the thing radiated menace.
"So," Fury said, voice low, "what happens if that thing shows up over Earth and decides to start shooting?"
A nervous technician spoke up. "Sir… according to the military, the only option would be… nuclear engagement."
Hill glanced at him sharply but said nothing.
Fury's jaw tightened, his tone flat.
"Nukes." He let the word hang in the air. "You think the guy who built a flying city with guns didn't consider someone might throw a few bombs at it?"
The room fell silent. No one had an answer.
Fury sighed and reached into his coat pocket, fingers closing around something smooth and familiar: a faded pager, old but carefully maintained. For a moment, he turned it over in his hand, the weight of a last-resort decision pressing down on him.
He could call her, the one person who might be able to face something like this.
But after a long moment, he slipped the pager back into his pocket. He wasn't ready to admit he could no longer protect the Earth.
Instead, he pulled out his phone and scrolled to a number few people knew existed. After a single ring, someone picked up.
"We need to talk," Fury said quietly. "Meet me at my place. Tonight."
He ended the call without waiting for an answer.
Around him, the crisis room buzzed with activity, but Fury's thoughts were elsewhere. Luthar flying around with a city-sized warship next to Mars, then made it vanish like a magic trick. He knew he had to be careful with every step before coming to the second concentration against Luthar.
Chapter: 134 Visit to Stark Tower
The lowest levels of the underground complex hummed with a different kind of life. Inside, the air was warmer, heavy with the scent of chemicals and something faintly biological.
Rows of bio-reactor tanks lined the walls, glowing softly in pale greens and blues. Inside the translucent cylinders floated human shapes in various stages of development. Some were little more than skeletal frames wrapped in cultivated muscle; others were fully formed, their eyes closed, their bodies slack in nutrient suspension. Thin cables and mechadendrites fed into the tanks, carrying proteins, oxygen, and whispered data.
Luthar moved between the vats with the precision of a priest tending sacred relics. His augmetic eye flickered with streams of information—oxygen levels, genetic drift, and potential mutation risks.
"Two percent instability…" he murmured, adjusting the nutrient ratio in one of the tanks. "Acceptable, as long as they can work for a few years."
The crew of the Harbinger of Ashes was taking form. Not servitors—he had no intention of relying solely on mindless drones. But these would not be ordinary humans. They would not tire, complain, or hesitate. They would serve, sleep, and awaken as he commanded, their loyalty woven into their blood and bone.
He paused at one of the tanks, studying the face of a nearly finished subject. Young, androgynous, expressionless—born to work and die in the void.
"Better than Earth's stock," he muttered. "And less… noisy. Still not as reliable as 40k humans, after all, those humans are quite cheap."
A sharp chime interrupted his thoughts.
Luthar turned toward a crystalline console set against the far wall. Its surface is rippled with soft light as system reports scrolled across it. In the center, a single notification pulsed red, then gold.
SYSTEM ENERGY RESERVE: 100%
Luthar's eyes narrowed, and a rare flicker of satisfaction touched his face.
"So," he murmured, "it is finally ready."
His fingers brushed across the interface. He was finally ready to return to the dungeon world to retrieve a few important things.
10% charge: enough for a single jump to another universe.
100% charge: safe for multiple transitions.
Who knew if one day somebody might try to kidnap him and throw him into a dangerous world? With this much energy, he could always come back without needing to rebuild the machine.
"Ten jumps," he calculated aloud. "One to go there, one to come back… and eight for safety."
As he reviewed his plans, a flicker of movement on the adjacent holo-screen caught his attention. The display shifted to a live feed of Earth's reaction.
A UN emergency session in chaos.
News broadcasts loop grainy images of the Harbinger of Ashes before its disappearance.
On the civilian side, the Internet had descended into hysteria.
Luthar's augmented eye scrolled through highlights:
Alien invasion theories.
Wild claims of "God's spaceship."
A meme of himself, haloed in golden light, holding the cathedral-ship like a toy.
Caption: "SPACE POPE BLESSES YOUR PLANET."
He exhaled softly through his nose.
"Well… looks like I can start my own religion."
His mind drifted to amusing possibilities: Freya in a crimson robe, preaching to humans about the greatness of the Machine God; Hephaestus forging weapons on Mars; and, in his spare time, visiting Asgard to take theeir minerals. After all, those gods were going to die eventually.
Another feed flickered in the corner of the display: Tony Stark's private channel, still marked inactive.
No response. No delivery of the new resources he had requested.
Luthar's hand curled slightly on the console.
Perhaps he had frightened Stark a little—but that was no excuse to withhold his resources.
"Perhaps I should visit him," Luthar mused.
"I need to remind him personally."
His mechadendrites clicked softly as he gave his creations one last glance. The vat-grown personnel floated in their glass sanctuaries, silent and obedient.
After finishing the final adjustments as he left the place elevator doors of the workshop slid shut behind him, leaving the faint glow of the bio-reactor vats in darkness. Luthar did not look back. His mind was already elsewhere.
The Drop-Wing Skimmer rose silently from the new platform and shot into the sky. New York glittered below like a nest of circuitry, unaware of the predator gliding over its skyline. Luthar's craft shimmered and faded as its stealth field engaged as it approached Stark Tower.
Hovering just beyond the landing pad, Luthar's mechadendrites tapped the controls. The Skimmer settled without a sound. To the people on the streets below, it was nothing more than a passing shadow against the city lights.
The glass doors of the top floor slid open to admit him.
Pepper Potts looked up from her desk and froze. She had expected Tony to return hours ago—not a black-and-silver figure walking in as if the tower belonged to him.
"Luthar." Her voice was calm, but her hand twitched toward the desk phone instinctively.
"Ms. Potts," Luthar said, smooth and unhurried. "You have ignored my last three resource requests. I am here to collect what is owed to me."
While saying this, his eyes fall on the new personal assistant—a tall redhead in a crisp suit. As he gets close, she rises from her chair. Natasha Romanoff's eyes assessed him with quiet calculation.
"Tony's not here," she said carefully. "Maybe you can sit down and wait for him."
Luthar's augmented eye swept the room, lingering on her for a fraction longer than comfort allowed.
"You will inform him," Luthar said, stepping closer, "I need all mineral samples, the palladium stock, and a large quantity of uranium, plutonium, and thorium."
Pepper forced a tight smile.
"That's… a very long list. And I should remind you—uranium, plutonium, thorium—those are restricted materials."
"Ms. Potts," Luthar interrupted gently, "restricted doesn't mean nonexistent. He simply needs to put on the suit and collect what I need. I need these materials in one week. If he cannot…" His voice hardened. "…then I may simply end his life."
Natasha took a slow step forward.
"I think you need to calm down. These aren't materials you can just pick up from a random store."
Luthar tilted his head, as if intrigued. His mechadendrites flexed behind him, steel claws curling idly, for him, every day he did not get his resources was a waste of his time, which he hated.
"I hope you remain this calm," he said at last, his voice smooth as ice, "when I take your sisters from the Red Room… and make them into real Black Widows."
This wasn't some random thought after all he already had plans for black widows, he couldn't let such excellent girls go to waste.
Natasha's confident mask cracked for just a heartbeat. Her eyes flickered in surprise before she forced them still.
"…You know about the Red Room?" she said, her voice is flatter than before.
"Of course," Luthar replied, almost indulgent. "I know about all of your sisters. Hidden away, trained like dolls. I will make them better… give them eight legs, then they can truly be worthy of the name Black Widow."
Natasha's fingers tightened on the edge of the desk.
"Unfortunately, your late, the red Room doesn't exist anymore. I destroyed it myself."
Luthar's augmented eye gleamed as he leaned closer. "Lie to someone else. I already know where to find them."
Pepper blinked, confused, "Wait… what's the Red Room?"
"Nothing special," Luthar said with casual amusement. "Just a place where little girls are trained to kill scientists and steal technology. A clever idea… though the drugs they use for control are rather inefficient."
Natasha's hand froze halfway to the desk. Her mask of calm faltered for a heartbeat, then returned. "…I told you I have already destroyed them," she said quietly.
Luthar's eyes glimmer. "Human eyes sometimes can give you false information. I suggest you get at least one artificial eye." no one can tell from his voice if he was joking or he was serious.