Howard's Legacy

Tony was badly shaken, and for the rest of the time he was clearly out of sorts. His eyes kept darting nervously toward Kate, who was crouched nearby playing with a mouse, while gruesome, terrifying visions from earlier kept flashing through his mind.

"Do you understand?"

Yuri waved a hand. Connors, who had tried his best to listen but was still lost, brought him a glass of water like an elementary school student. Yuri took it and started guzzling it down. Embarrassed, Connors said, "I understand, but not completely. The local application of the Decay Rate Algorithm you mentioned... Is it really possible with today's technology?"

"Tony?"

Connors nudged Tony, who looked completely lovestruck. "What about you? Do you understand?"

"Huh?"

"Oh!"

Tony cleared his throat and fussed with his clothes, then met Yuri's appraising gaze without flinching. "Of course. How could I not understand?"

He reached out as if to pat Yuri on the shoulder, but when he felt a gaze coming from somewhere nearby, he sheepishly pulled his hand back.

"Um, I just remembered Pepper's waiting for me upstairs... Yuri, Connors, and you too, beautiful lady—I'll leave this place to you."

As soon as he finished speaking, he made his way through the dust-covered equipment, choosing a passage as far from Kate as possible. He was almost at the elevator when Yuri called from behind him. "Remember to get a guest room ready for me. Once we're done here, I'll stay the night."

"Sure, no problem!"

Tony hit the elevator button and watched the numbers descend overhead, his feelings a mix of urgency and relief. It was just one guest room, right? If it meant getting away from that terrifying woman, he'd prepare any number of gadgets for Yuri!

"Ding!"

Tony darted inside and immediately hammered the close-door button. Only when the doors had nearly shut, leaving barely enough room for someone to squeeze through, did he let out a long breath and relax.

"I'm not touching a woman for the next week, even if it kills me!"

After making that solemn vow, Tony paused, then amended it:

"Except Pepper."

Down in the underground lab, Yuri didn't immediately start modifying the Lizard Potion. He laid a hand on the metal wall and used his mechanical ability to destroy every camera in the room.

He wiped the thick dust off a machine, revealing a line of English lettering: "Strategic Scientific Reserve Institute."

"What does this do?"

Kate curiously pressed the machine's most conspicuous green button. A moment later, powerful electrical equipment began to hum, and a faint blue glow shone through the seams where the machine's parts joined.

Kate shrank back and darted behind Yuri. Resting her chin on his shoulder, she watched the machine's blue light grow brighter, her wide eyes full of both fear and curiosity.

"Clink! Clink! Clink!"

Three crisp sounds rang out from inside the machine. Following them, Yuri found a small drawer-like compartment. He pulled it open and saw three cubes lying quietly inside, gleaming with dazzling blue light.

The blue glow fell on Yuri, and he felt one of the abilities inside him start to stir. After checking carefully, he realized it was the Super Speed he had most recently gained from Makkari!

"Kate."

Yuri picked up one of the cubes and clenched it tightly in his left palm. A gorgeous, luminous blue radiance spiraled upward along a pattern and soon spread across his entire arm.

Yuri picked up another cube and gripped it in his right hand. He closed his eyes, then gave an instruction just before he exerted enough force to crush the two thumb-sized cubes. "Stand guard. Don't let anyone come near me."

Boom!

A raging mass of blue energy blasted the surrounding equipment aside. The frail Dr. Connors was hurled into a metal wall some distance away, then fell to the floor, his life hanging in the balance.

The veins all over Yuri's body bulged. Under the immense pain, he involuntarily reverted to his true form. Dozens of tubes on his back frantically absorbed the spatial energy drifting through the air, transmitting every last drop into Yuri's body.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Though only a few seconds passed, it felt to Yuri as if a long time had gone by.

The blue light gradually faded from his skin, weaving together with his Super Speed into mysterious blue-and-gold patterns. At a thought, a dazzling streak of blue and gold flashed past, and he appeared without warning on the other side of the underground lab.

Aside from the dazzling display of light, the whole process hadn't even stirred a single lightweight sheet of paper along his path!

Seeing him slowly return to human form, Kate realized the change was over. She came closer with concern and gently sniffed at a few spots on Yuri's body. "Boss, are you all right?"

Yuri lightly clenched his fists. Faint blue-and-gold patterns flickered and vanished. He rubbed Silly Cat's head and smiled. "I'm fine. I've never felt better."

He waved, sending dozens of black metal spheres flying out. Golden beams swept from top to bottom across every machine in the underground lab that looked even a little old.

Clang!

The objects' sudden disappearance immediately lowered the air pressure in the lab. A great rush of air poured in through the elevator shaft, slamming the elevator doors with a tremendous bang.

Yuri stood firm in the gale and surveyed his surroundings. He guessed this was the secret lab of Tony's father, Howard Stark, and that the equipment he had packed into the Black Spheres was probably the Cosmic Cube energy-gun production line that the current S.H.I.E.L.D. was desperately trying to replicate.

After putting away the Black Spheres, he asked Kate to steady the remaining experimental equipment related to the Lizard Potion, then crouched beside Connors and checked for a breath.

"Dead?"

Yuri pursed his lips. Humans were such a fragile species. But it was precisely because they reproduced quickly, were fairly intelligent, and could easily be destroyed that the Gods Group had chosen them as the kindling for the birth of new gods.

"Can I eat him?"

Kate finished the task Yuri had given her and swallowed as she looked at the still-warm corpse. He was a "doctor," after all! Eating him should make her smarter than Silly Bird, right?

You were what you ate, after all!

"No!"

Yuri hoisted the doctor's corpse onto a chair. His golden eyes turned pure white in an instant. Though the doctor had no sign of life, his body suddenly convulsed a few times. Then he abruptly opened his eyes, revealing pure white irises beneath his eyelids.

A bizarre sight unfolded: Yuri and the doctor spoke at the same time, their expressions not merely similar but exactly alike. Yuri and Connors spoke in unison. "I still need to borrow Dr. Connors's relatively advanced brain."

Kate watched the scene with curiosity, her wide eyes full of wonder.

This was a new ability Yuri had unlocked by letting his imagination run wild. Its effects could roughly be understood as adding a Linked Processor to his brain: it not only expanded his brain capacity, but also greatly increased his thinking speed and comprehension.

He raised his arm, and Connors's corpse beside him performed the same movement. Yuri could clearly sense the nervous system inside the corpse breaking down. As time passed, he could no longer feel the body at all.

Clunk!

The nerve cells in Dr. Connors's legs finally died off completely. With Yuri no longer controlling him, the joints gave way and he slumped back into the chair.

Yuri paid him no further attention. He walked over to the lab bench and used an ultrafine needle to take a drop of Lizard Potion, then placed it on a slide.

Strands of golden Life Energy seeped from his fingertips and burrowed into the dark green droplet on the slide.

"Now, the modification begins!"