Chapter 13
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Smoke still hung in the air like a wounded beast, thick and choking as it curled through the ruined street. The scent of scorched concrete, twisted metal, and something far older than fire clung to the city like a curse.
Tony Stark arrived in seconds.
The thrusters of his suit hissed as he landed amidst the devastation, boots crunching against shattered glass and blackened debris. Emergency sirens screamed in the distance—useless noise. The real work was already happening on the ground.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., start full-spectrum scanning. Prioritize residual energy readings—everything from gamma to arcane."
"Already underway, sir," the AI's calm voice replied. "But something's... off. The energy signature is fragmented, but there's a secondary source still present."
Tony's eyes flicked over the HUD, watching as lines of data flooded in. It was bad. The blast radius alone suggested a focused detonation—maybe not intentional, but powerful. Far too powerful for conventional weapons.
And yet, he couldn't shake the feeling he'd seen this before.
As he moved between ruined storefronts and cratered asphalt, he paused only to help lift a chunk of collapsed rubble off a trapped woman. Her child clung to her side, crying, bloody but alive. Stark gently activated a pulse beacon for emergency evac, and without waiting for thanks, moved on.
His heart was heavy, but his mind—focused.
Then J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke again, but this time with a different tone.
"Sir. I'm detecting an energy field roughly 43 meters to your left. It matches the signature that shielded you... during the initial encounter with Subject: Vulkan."
Tony froze.
"What?" he said under his breath, already shifting his direction. "Are you saying the same energy that kept me from turning into overcooked steak is here?"
"Correct. And it appears to be... emanating from a child."
A soft ping lit up his HUD—narrow alleyway, partially hidden by a collapsed parking structure.
And there—**he saw him.**
The boy couldn't have been older than thirteen. Dark, unruly hair. Clothes singed and hanging off him like burnt paper. His knees were scraped, his hands trembling. Eyes wide and glassy, darting back and forth like a cornered animal.
But it was the **energy** around him that made Tony pause.
It shimmered in the air like heatwaves—but without the warmth. No... this was wrong. It pulsed in uneven intervals, like it hadn't yet figured out how to breathe.
**Warp energy.**
Unrefined. Wild. And leaking into the world through a boy who didn't even know what he was.
"Identity match," J.A.R.V.I.S. murmured. "Kevin Tremain. Local middle-school student. No recorded mutant gene. No prior history of enhanced activity. But... his unique genetic structure suggests a psychic sensitivity far beyond human norms. He's... absorbing ambient warp presence."
Tony's boots hissed again as he gently approached.
"Hey... Kevin, right?" he said, removing the helmet so the boy could see his face. "My name's Tony. Tony Stark. I'm not here to hurt you, okay? Just want to make sure you're alright."
The boy didn't answer. He flinched—hands clenching tighter.
"Listen," Tony said, voice softer now, kneeling slightly. "Whatever happened here... it's not your fault. You're not in trouble. I just want to help you—"
Kevin took a step back. His lips trembled.
"I didn't... I didn't mean to— I just— they wouldn't stop yelling— and it hurt—everything hurts—"
Tony reached out instinctively.
Too fast.
Kevin **screamed**.
And then the world **cracked**.
A blast of unseen force flung Tony like a ragdoll, slamming him through a brick building on the opposite side of the street. The structure detonated on impact, bursting into fire and smoke. Concrete and steel ripped apart in every direction, and bystanders—those too close—were caught in the shockwave.
Screams filled the air.
Sirens redoubled.
And at the center of it all, the boy stood trembling—eyes glowing dimly now, the aura around him pulsing erratically. Each beat of his heart sent another ripple of raw psychic force outward, like a dam cracking from the inside.
"Sir, status report?" J.A.R.V.I.S. called out over the comms, static-filled.
Tony groaned, struggling to lift the debris off his crushed arm plating. "I'm alive... barely. That wasn't a telekinetic push. That was a warp backlash—like a reflexive defense mechanism. He doesn't know what he's doing."
"Then we have a serious problem."
Tony's vision cleared just in time to see the boy—**Kevin**—clutching his head as the air around him warped and shimmered like reality itself was rejecting his presence. Civilians had begun to back away in fear, some shouting, others trying to help those caught in the blast.
Kevin's breathing quickened.
"I didn't mean to... I didn't— I didn't—"
And the energy flared again—**stronger**.
More unstable.
More alive.
Tony's heart sank as he watched. This wasn't just a scared kid with an X-gene or a freak accident. This was something else.
Something **old**.
Something **Vulkan** had tried to warn him about.
And it had just awakened.
Tony stood amidst the rubble, a jagged edge of rebar scraping against his shoulder plate as he pushed himself upright. The HUD flickered for a moment from the impact, but Jarvis quickly recalibrated. What greeted Tony wasn't just smoke and fire—but death.
Real, terrifying death.
He stared, motionless, as a man staggered toward him. The man's skin peeled and turned to ash mid-step, his mouth agape in silent horror as his body crumbled into fine dust, scattered into the wind like forgotten memories.
"…What the hell…" Tony muttered, his voice low and shaken, the guilt beginning to gnaw at his gut.
"Sir… the warp energy is actively destabilizing organic matter," Jarvis spoke, calm yet edged with urgency. "Casualties are increasing by the second."
Tony clenched his teeth. "Where's the kid?"
"Seventy meters east of your current location—still radiating the same volatile pattern. Unstable."
"Of course he is," Tony muttered, adjusting his helmet. A quick burst from his thrusters launched him toward the heart of the chaos. Pillars of warped air shimmered around him like heat haze, disorienting and unnatural. The smell was worse—burnt copper, ozone, and something foul he couldn't describe.
He landed hard near Kevin, who was curled in on himself, his hands over his ears, whimpering beneath a cocoon of dark, shifting energy. His body trembled, twitching unnaturally with every wave of warp pulse echoing from him.
"Hey, hey, buddy," Tony called out, keeping his tone soft despite the pounding in his chest. "You need to breathe, alright? I'm not here to hurt you. You didn't mean it."
But the boy didn't answer. He twitched again, this time harder, the pulse of warp energy around him flaring like a heartbeat under stress. The air rippled. Something snapped.
And then the screaming began.
Tony spun around just in time to see three civilians—ones he thought had been spared—suddenly seize, their backs arching unnaturally. Flesh tore, bones cracked, and their mouths released a wet, gurgling wail that wasn't human anymore. Their bodies twisted and morphed, sprouting malformed limbs, jaws unhinging, eyes melting into pits of black and red.
"No…" Tony's voice dropped, haunted. These weren't just mutations. They were **things**. Aberrations.
Warp-born.
Just like the monstrous depictions scorched into the stone walls of Vulkan's hidden chamber. Horrors that didn't belong in any sane reality.
"Jarvis," Tony said grimly, "I need targeting solutions. Now."
"Already up, sir."
He launched forward, repulsors primed, blade ejecting with a sharp *shhhk* from his forearm. The first creature lunged at him—its limbs too long, its mouth splitting from chin to chest. He ducked under the strike, slashing across its midsection, green ichor spraying across his armor.
The second pounced from above. He barely managed to shoot it mid-air, the repulsor blast blowing a chunk from its side, but it still kept moving. No pain. Just hunger.
Tony grunted as he took a heavy hit to the side, crashing into a parked car that crumpled under the impact. Dazed, he rose to his feet again. "Damn it," he hissed, his eyes briefly flashing toward Kevin, whose miasma of warp energy now rose like a pillar—dense, suffocating, and eerily *alive*.
Somewhere, far from the city—deep beneath magma and stone—**Vulkan opened his eyes.**
His meditation broke instantly. Warp winds screeched in his mind, the currents no longer under his control. He felt it—a beacon of raw, unstable power erupting from Earth. It wasn't just psychic—it was something *new*, something *nurtured* by the warp's own will.
The volcano rumbled faintly.
He rose, eyes burning with grim understanding.
"So… it begins," he whispered to himself.
There was no more time for patience.
Back in New York, Tony's suit groaned under the weight of another monstrous strike as the creatures swarmed him like locusts. His HUD was red all over. Warnings. Damage. Civilian risks. Power draw instability. And still, the kid screamed, still, the warp surged.
Tony's hand gripped his sword tighter.
"I swear," he muttered, breathless, "if you don't get a grip, kid—I'm gonna throw up in this damn helmet."
Then, he pushed forward again—determined, furious, and a little afraid.
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