Smith Doyle felt no concern about the excavation of the dragon keel beneath Hell's Kitchen. An invisible barrier protected the ancient remains, construction crews would hit that mystical wall long before they reached anything vital. When the time came, he'd simply dispel the barrier himself and claim what lay beneath.
The dragon bones represented something invaluable: true resurrection. With them in his possession, his companions could return even from death itself. No need to waste Dragon Ball wishes on revival when he had an alternative solution waiting underground.
John Wick guided the Maybach through New York's streets with practiced ease, delivering Smith back to the Fraternity's headquarters. The building stood as it always had, a monument to centuries of assassins operating in the shadows, following the Loom of Fate's commands. Though Smith had long since freed them from that textile tyranny, the headquarters retained its austere, purposeful atmosphere.
Smith found Mr. X in the tactical operations room, surrounded by monitors displaying intelligence feeds from across the globe. The veteran assassin looked up as Smith entered, his weathered face impassive.
"X, I need you to investigate something for me." Smith kept his voice low, though they were alone. "This stays between us. Tell no one else."
Mr. X straightened, his full attention locked on Smith. "What's the target, Chief?"
"During the Cold War, the Soviet Union ran a covert program called the Red Room. Official records claim it was dismantled with the USSR's collapse." Smith pulled up a chair, his assassin's instincts already mapping out the investigation's complexity. "My intelligence suggests otherwise. The Red Room still operates, training agents, conducting assassinations, manipulating world events from the shadows."
Mr. X's expression didn't change, but his fingers moved to a nearby tablet, ready to document everything.
"I need you to locate three individuals," Smith continued. "First: Alexei Shostakov, former Soviet super-soldier. He wore the Red Guardian mantle before they locked him away in a Russian prison. Find out which facility holds him and his current status."
"Second and third: Yelena Belova and Melina Vostokoff. Both are active Red Room operatives, probably still under their control through psychological conditioning or chemical suppression."
Smith leaned forward, his transmigrator knowledge warring with his Fraternity training. He knew these people's stories, their pain, their eventual liberation. But here, now, they were still trapped in the Red Room's web. The thought sent a cold spike of determination through him.
"Gather intelligence on all three, but maintain absolute operational security. No direct contact, no alerts, nothing that might tip off the Red Room that we're watching. Understood?"
Mr. X's fingers flew across the tablet's surface, recording names and parameters. "Understood, Chief. I'll compile full dossiers and report any developments immediately."
After Mr. X departed, Smith made his way to the Fraternity's training facilities. The familiar smell of gun oil and sweat greeted him as he entered. His body moved through combat drills with mechanical precision, muscle memory from both his original life and the Fraternity's brutal conditioning. But his mind wandered to the larger picture.
Everything was falling into place. Soon, Tony Stark would have his cave revelation and emerge as Iron Man. The Dragon Balls would regenerate, scattered across the Earth once more. And when they did, Smith would have options, multiple paths to power, to protection, to victory.
The Scouter display flickered at the edge of his vision, tracking his power level as it climbed incrementally with each training session. The Dokkan Battle System had given him so much already. But he couldn't become complacent. The Marvel universe held threats that could atomize him before he even registered their presence.
His fists struck the reinforced training dummy with measured force. One crisis at a time. First the Red Room, then Iron Man's debut, then whatever came next.
Across town, in a modest café tucked into Hell's Kitchen's slowly gentrifying blocks, Foggy Nelson studied his best friend's troubled expression. Matt Murdock sat across from him, his red-tinted glasses unable to hide the conflict written across his features.
"Matt, there's nothing wrong with what you do, helping people who can't afford representation, fighting for justice in the courtroom." Foggy's voice carried genuine concern. He'd known Matt since college, had seen him wrestle with moral dilemmas before, but something about this felt different.
Matt removed his glasses, and though his sightless eyes couldn't meet Foggy's gaze, the gesture felt deliberate. Heavy. "Foggy, you know that's not what I'm talking about."
Foggy exhaled slowly. "You accepted their warning. You stayed out of it. And wasn't destroying the Hand and dismantling Kingpin's empire exactly what you wanted?"
"Not like this." Matt's jaw tightened, his enhanced hearing no doubt picking up every heartbeat in the café, every whispered conversation, every piece of evidence that the world continued spinning regardless of his crisis of conscience. "I wanted them tried. Due process. The legal system holding them accountable, not... not vigilante execution."
His fingers drummed against the table, a rare tell that betrayed his agitation. "The Hand is gone. Fisk's organization is shattered. But who watches the watchmen? I've been investigating, Foggy. The people who killed those criminals? They're assassins. Professional killers. Not heroes, just a different brand of criminal eliminating the competition."
The casual café atmosphere felt suddenly oppressive. Foggy leaned forward, his expression hardening. "So what was the alternative, Matt? Let the Hand continue trafficking people? Let Kingpin keep corrupting the city? You've thrown yourself against those organizations for years and barely made a dent."
"I know." The admission came out barely above a whisper. "I know, but, "
"But what? What do you want to do?"
Matt's hands clenched into fists, then slowly relaxed. "I don't know. I'm... I'm lost, Foggy. I need guidance. I need to talk to Stick."
In the basement workshop of his Malibu mansion, Tony Stark made minute adjustments to the Mark II's arm assembly. The mechanical limb hung suspended in the workspace, its polished metal surface reflecting the arc reactor's blue glow from his chest.
"I've been calling you!" Pepper Potts descended the stairs, balancing two boxes and a cup of coffee with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd been managing Tony Stark's chaos for years. "Didn't you hear the intercom?"
"Hmm?" Tony didn't look up from the circuitry he was rewiring. "What's up?"
Pepper set everything on a nearby workbench with perhaps slightly more force than necessary. "Obadiah is upstairs waiting for you. What should I tell him?"
"Right, yeah, tell him I'll be up in a minute." Tony lifted the arm assembly, his mind already running through test protocols.
Pepper moved closer, her eyes narrowing at the weapon-like apparatus. "I thought you weren't making weapons anymore?"
"I'm not. This is a flight stabilizer, completely harmless." Tony's finger found the activation switch.
The repulsor discharged with a crack of displaced air. Energy erupted from the palm actuator, and the recoil sent Tony flying backward. He crashed into a workbench as the beam punched through a metal support frame, leaving a smoking hole where solid steel had been moments before.
Tony lay sprawled on the floor, his hair slightly singed, as Pepper stared at the destruction with wide eyes.
"Accident," Tony announced, clambering to his feet. "Total accident. See? Harmless."
Tony cleaned up quickly, or rather, shoved things aside in a way that created the illusion of organization, and bounded upstairs. Obadiah Stane sat at the piano, coaxing out a lazy melody that filled the open-concept living space.
"How'd it go?" Tony grabbed a water bottle from the kitchen, deliberately casual.
"Oh, bad." Obadiah's fingers continued their dance across the keys without missing a note. "But I brought back pizza from New York, so not entirely bad."
Tony noticed Pepper still working at the dining table, her laptop open, her attention seemingly fixed on spreadsheets even as her awareness tracked the conversation. He grabbed the pizza box from the coffee table. "Well, pizza makes everything better."
"Would've gone better if you'd been there." Obadiah's tone remained light, conversational, but something underneath carried weight.
"You told me to keep a low profile." Tony opened the box, the scent of cheese and pepperoni wafting up. "So I kept a low profile. You handle the corporate politics, that's the arrangement."
Obadiah rose from the piano bench, crossing to the seating area with measured steps. "Tony, this was a board meeting."
Tony's hand froze halfway to grabbing a slice. "Board meeting?"
Obadiah settled onto the couch beside him, his body language radiating concerned mentor despite the words he spoke next. "The board believes you're suffering from severe PTSD. They're preparing an injunction."
"An injunction?" Tony's voice climbed half an octave. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means they want you out."
Tony's laugh came out sharp, disbelieving. "Out? Why? Because the stock dropped forty points? We knew that would happen when I made the announcement, "
"Fifty-six and a half points," Pepper interjected from across the room, not looking up from her laptop.
Tony waved dismissively. "Doesn't matter. We have controlling interest. They can't, "
"The board has power too, Tony." Obadiah's voice carried the patience of someone explaining obvious facts to a brilliant but naive child. "They're building a case that you and your new direction aren't aligned with the company's best interests."
"This is responsibility!" Tony stood abruptly, pizza forgotten. "This is the future, not just my future, but the company's, "
He caught himself, saw the flash in Obadiah's eyes, and course-corrected. "I mean, this is me being responsible on behalf of the company. You know what? You're doing great. I'm just gonna..." He grabbed a slice of pizza and headed toward the basement stairs. "I'm going back to the workshop."
"Tony, wait, " Obadiah stood, hands raised placatingly. "Tony, come on."
Obadiah intercepted him before he could descend, one hand on Tony's shoulder. "Hey, hey, listen. I'm trying to help you here, but you need to give me something concrete. Something I can use to convince the board you're not losing it."
His gaze dropped to the arc reactor's glow beneath Tony's shirt. "Let me bring in some engineers, have them analyze that device. Get some technical specifications, maybe some schematics. That kind of breakthrough technology would shut up every critic on the board."
There it was, the real reason for the visit. Tony's genius-level intellect processed Obadiah's angle instantly. The arc reactor represented unlimited clean energy, a paradigm shift in power generation, and more money than even Stark Industries' weapons division had generated. Obadiah saw a golden goose and wanted his hands on it.
"No." Tony's response came flat and absolute. "That's not happening."
It wasn't about trust, or rather, it wasn't about trusting Obadiah specifically. Tony still hadn't identified who'd sold Stark weapons to the Ten Rings, who'd betrayed him to terrorists and left him to die in a cave. Until he knew who the traitor was, nobody got access to the reactor technology.
"This is my project. Non-negotiable."
Obadiah held Tony's pizza slice hostage, then relented with a philosophical shrug and let Tony reclaim it. "Can I at least see what you're working on down there?"
"Go to bed, Obie." Tony pulled away, heading for the basement with his prize.
Obadiah watched him go, his expression neutral. He wasn't concerned about Tony's refusal. His own team of scientists already had the basic specifications from the arc reactor keeping Tony alive, they just needed time to reverse-engineer it. And as for whatever Tony was building in that basement workshop? Obadiah had been Tony's mentor and father figure for decades. The boy had never hidden anything from him successfully.
Eventually, he'd see exactly what Tony Stark was creating down there. It was only a matter of time.
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