Su Zhan leaned back against a shattered concrete barrier, his breathing ragged but his mind screaming with triumphant, chaotic energy.
["Acknowledged, Host. No identity markers detected by S.H.I.E.L.D. or Stark's proprietary systems. Proceeding with analysis of acquired data."]
Tony Stark stared at him, his face a mask of mistrust that couldn't quite override the desperate hope for Pepper. "Jarvis confirmed it. You're a ghost, and I hate ghosts. I'm letting you try this, but hear me: if you so much as give her a paper cut, I will personally retrofit a satellite to drop a tungsten rod right where you're standing. Do we understand each other?"
Su Zhan managed a sweat-slicked, tired smile. "Crystal clear, Mr. Stark. Rest assured, I am not in the business of making enemies, especially not the ones who wear the most stylish armors."
He moved to Pepper Potts, whose eyes were wide and filled with a fearful tremor. Su Zhan knew exactly how close she was to boiling over, literally.
"Alright, Pepper," he said, his voice dropping to a low, soothing tone, consciously injecting warmth into his delivery. "Relax. Don't fight this. The process is going to feel... intense. Like a really bad rush of adrenaline. But I promise, there is zero risk. The last thing I want is the Avengers tracking me down, so just leave the hard part to me."
As he extended his hand toward her chest, Tony roared in protest.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?! Hands off the merchandise, pal!"
Su Zhan didn't flinch, his gaze locked on Pepper's face. "Don't misunderstand, Tony. Believe me, I'm not using this for a cheap thrill or some kind of opportunistic perversion. I am strictly interested in the volatile biology, not the beautiful woman hosting it."
A cynical internal voice added: Besides, I don't need to grope anyone. I can just steal their abilities.
With his hand firmly pressed to the center of her chest, Su Zhan activated the Devour function.
It wasn't a sudden yank or a violent theft. It felt like an endless, greedy vacuum cleaner had been turned on inside him, humming with a power that devoured energy signatures. From the point of contact, a dense, fiery current flowed. It was the pure essence of the Extremis Virus: raw regenerative data, thermal control schematics, and the bio-engineered stability system.
Pepper gasped, her entire body arching slightly. A faint, internal orange light flickered beneath her skin, rapidly diminishing as the energy was siphoned away. Her face tightened in pain, a silent, sustained cry of effort as the corrosive power was wrenched free.
Tony, frantic, moved forward, but Su Zhan's expression—strained, sweat dripping from his chin, veins bulging in his neck—was enough to stop the billionaire. The man looked like he was fighting his own battle, not executing an attack.
Five agonizing minutes later, the flow stopped. The power within Pepper was entirely extinguished.
Su Zhan wrenched his hand away as if touching hot glass and stumbled backward, collapsing onto the ruined concrete. He was drenched in sweat, utterly drained, yet a wide, manic grin was plastered on his face. The energy toll had been far higher than expected, but the payoff…
"Pepper! Are you okay? How do you feel?" Tony was instantly at her side, checking her for signs of trauma.
Pepper cautiously touched her own face, then the ground, her eyes wide with wonder. "I… I feel normal. The buzz is gone. The heat, the urge to boil… it's all gone." She looked down at her hands, which no longer glowed with magma-like intensity. "I'm fine, Tony. Completely fine."
Tony was already pulling out his phone, likely preparing to summon every medical drone in his inventory, but he paused, looking at Su Zhan, who was breathing heavily on the ground.
"And him? He looks like he just ran a marathon in a sauna," Pepper noted, her relief tempered by a lingering concern for her mysterious benefactor.
Su Zhan simply waved a limp hand, managing a theatrical cough. "Don't worry about the humble delivery boy. Just leave me here to commune with the rubble. Go get her checked out, Stark. Priority one."
Watching the pair—Tony lifting the still-shaken Pepper and taking flight in a single functional Iron Man boot—vanish into the twilight, Su Zhan finally allowed himself to erupt in silent, victorious laughter.
It worked. Oh, Gods, it actually worked.
He pushed himself up, adrenaline surging past the exhaustion. He felt the change instantly—a fierce, elemental energy coiled within his core. It was hot, powerful, and utterly under his command.
With a thought, his right forearm became a miniature forge. The skin glowed a terrifying, bright orange, generating heat that made the surrounding air distort. He touched the ground, and the ruined concrete instantly smoked, sizzling, and began to erode into fine, scorched dust.
He quickly suppressed the thermal field, letting his arm return to normal, pristine skin. Then, in an almost masochistic test, he found a jagged piece of rebar and plunged it with calculated force into his forearm.
A sharp, searing pain shot through him. He grit his teeth, forcing back a shout, but his relief instantly overshadowed the agony.
The deep, messy wound began to knit. The skin cells multiplied and rushed to the breach, the torn muscle fibers stitching themselves back together with incredible speed. In less than twenty seconds, the only evidence of the self-inflicted damage was a faint red mark that was already fading.
"Unbelievable. The regeneration is phenomenal," he muttered, flexing his now-perfect arm. It wasn't Wolverine's hyper-level healing, but the ability to regenerate deep tissue damage and potentially even lost limbs was the ultimate insurance policy. "I'm not easily killable anymore. I have survivability."
This was it. The launch pad. The first domino.
"This is just the first step," Su Zhan declared, standing tall amidst the ruins. "The first power. The beginning of the reign."
He turned and walked away from the industrial ruins, leaving the exploding armors and the genius billionaire behind. It was time to enter the game, not just watch it.
The metamorphosis from shell-shocked transmigrator to confident player was swift. Three days of leveraging his basic knowledge of the world and his new, high-grade healing factor (which allowed him to take risks) had changed his entire presentation.
He drove a sleek, obsidian-black convertible, his clothing sharp and expensive. Young, handsome, and projecting an aura of quiet, moneyed confidence, Su Zhan was instantly magnetic. He had, let's say, negotiated the temporary use of the vehicle and a substantial line of credit from a minor New York finance tycoon who, coincidentally, had a conveniently exploitable secret. No violence, just highly persuasive conversation and a flash of unexpected thermal energy when the tycoon wasn't looking.
Su Zhan wasn't concerned about 'trouble.' He needed attention, but the right kind.
His next move was critical: Infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.
It sounded counter-intuitive for a burgeoning King, but the timing was perfect. The organization was crumbling, Hydra was nesting like termites, and the resources were unparalleled. More importantly, the specific target was the formation of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. team.
The timeline placed him just before the rise of the specialized field team led by none other than Phil Coulson—the "good-natured guy" who had famously been resurrected after his run-in with Loki. That team would be a magnet for easily accessible, interesting abilities, strange artifacts, and low-level superhuman encounters. It was a fast-track to power acquisition without having to globe-trot hunting for Gamma labs or Norse mythology.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a treasure trove of manageable, digestible power sources. And the identity of an Agent would grant him perfect, legal access to the wider Marvel playground.
He didn't need control of S.H.I.E.L.D.; he just needed their badge as a temporary key.
His plan hinged on bypassing the official, tedious enrollment process—which would be complicated by Tony Stark's vague warnings—and linking up directly with a future team member.
That person was Skye.
Skye: the skilled hacker from the Rising Tide organization who would eventually become the Inhuman powerhouse Quake, capable of generating destructive vibrational waves. She was a future Level 10 Clearance Agent and a phenomenal target for future Devour actions.
But right now, she was just an activist hacker.
Su Zhan's car idled quietly on a New York side street. He focused, concentrating not on heat or regeneration, but on an almost ethereal sensation. Whether it was the "protagonist's halo" or a subtle side effect of his physical rewrite, he seemed to have an unsettlingly good sense of where things were happening.
"And there she is," he murmured.
Skye emerged from a nearby, hipster-friendly coffee shop. She was exactly as he remembered: long, messy brown hair, a practical leather jacket, and that distinct, striking mix of Eastern and Western features. She carried her coffee with the slight slump of someone who spent far too much time staring at screens in the dark.
She was heading toward a battered, white minivan—her mobile home and base of operations.
Su Zhan started the engine of his sleek convertible. Slow, smooth. He was tracking, not chasing.
Skye reached her dilapidated van, unlocking the side door. Just as Su Zhan was about to pull up to the curb, throw on his million-dollar smile, and deliver his carefully scripted opening line about "mutual interests in government oversight," a person appeared out of nowhere, blocking his path.
She materialized with the silent, predatory grace of a feline. Tight black jeans, a form-fitting top, and long, flaming red hair. Her figure was immediately, distractingly, and dangerously curvaceous.
Su Zhan sighed, leaning back in his seat, his smile instantly becoming practiced and wary. This is inconvenient.
The woman sauntered up to his open car window, resting her elbows lightly on the frame, her green eyes piercing and unsettlingly intelligent.
"Hey, handsome," she purred, her voice smooth and carrying a subtle European accent that vibrated with professional danger. "There's a quaint little bar just around the corner. I'm buying. Care to ditch the rusty van chase and actually have a chat?"
Su Zhan felt a tiny chill, despite his internal fire. She hadn't just appeared; she was waiting for him. And she knew exactly who he was watching.
The Black Widow had just entered the game.