One last wish

One evening six months later, Luke was directing a group of Ninja Soldiers to surround a bar when his phone suddenly rang.

Seeing that it was Pepper, Luke waved the ninjas forward to attack, then moved farther away to take the call.

"Hey, Potts. Long time no see."

"Hey, Luke. Long time no see. Where are you having fun?"

Luke glanced at the bar, where a commotion was starting up nearby, and said, "At a... uh... bar?"

"Uh, all right. I hope I'm not interrupting."

"Not at all. What's up?"

Luke was a little puzzled. Six months ago, he had told Tony he was going traveling, then started making his way around the United States to earn some extra cash.

While experiencing the local customs of different cities and doing some cleaning up, Luke had also gotten his main line of work going, posting pictures of food and scenery every day and gaining quite a few followers. Some companies had even contacted him, hoping to make some backroom deals.

With both his main job and his side gig thriving, Luke was in a very good mood. His only regret was that all the Dark Dimensions had been tapped out, and Kamar-Taj's spatial observation capabilities were too limited to find any new ones, leaving him without any incoming energy for a long time. His Shadow Army had remained at forty squads, without the joy of adding another for quite some time.

After briefly recalling the past six months, Luke returned his attention to the call and asked Pepper what had happened.

Pepper fell silent for a moment, then said quietly, "Luke, I think you need to come back and see Tony. He's been acting really strange lately. He doesn't handle company business anymore and spends every day in his lab. He even gave his entire art collection to a children's association. It's like..."

"He's a different person?" Luke said. So the new storyline had finally started? He had been waiting for it for far too long. He had originally thought Iron Man 2 would begin in a few weeks, only for the plot to take six months to start.

"I'll come back and check on Tony. Don't worry," Luke assured Pepper.

Suddenly, a violent explosion rocked the bar, sending flames roaring upward.

"Oh my God, Luke! Was that an explosion over there?"

Pepper cried out in surprise over the phone.

"Uh, it's nothing. I'm at a, uh... beach party, and some guy here set off an absolutely enormous firework."

"Really?" Pepper asked skeptically. "But you just said you were at a bar."

"Really! The bar's right on the beach, and they attract customers with spectacular fireworks shows." Luke glanced at the battle and saw a large group of vampires firing guns in a fierce attack on the ninjas that had survived the explosion.

"Really? Why do those sounds seem like... gunfire?"

"You're hearing things. I guarantee this is an absolutely spectacular fireworks show. I feel like my camera's about to run out of memory."

Luke summoned the Shadow Ninjas again and directed them to attack the vampires.

"Then it must be an amazing show, with all those fireworks going off." Listening to the unending sounds over the phone, Pepper wondered what kind of fireworks these were and why they sounded so much like gunfire. Was that some kind of local specialty, too?

"It is. The show's fantastic, and everyone's having a great time!" Luke watched a vampire take a fatal stab through the heart and crumble into ash.

As the battle ended, Luke saw Coulson, who had arrived uninvited, waving at him. He said one last thing into the phone. "Don't worry, I'll come see Tony right away. I need to take a few pictures first. I'll definitely show you when I get there."

Without waiting for Pepper's reply, Luke hung up and jumped straight off the rooftop.

The building wasn't very tall anyway, only a few stories. That was nothing to him anymore.

Coulson surveyed the Syrian-style scene around him with a headache, at a loss over how to clean up the mess. As Luke approached him, Coulson said helplessly, "Looks like you'll need to take a break for now. This got a little out of hand, and I'll need some time to deal with it. Could you stop hunting vampires for the time being?"

Luke nodded. He really had gone a little overboard this time. "All right, then. Remember to transfer the money to my account." The storyline had started just in time, too. He still needed to go back and check on Tony's condition, to see how Tony was doing.

Watching Luke walk into an alley and leave, Coulson let out a relieved breath. He had just received orders from the director to stop Luke from hunting any more vampires, because over the past few months, Luke had cleared every vampire out of sixteen cities.

Leaving aside the ordinary ones, he had hunted down nearly fifty High-Level Vampires.

The vampire elders had already lodged a protest. If this continued, they would go straight to war.

Coulson had had no idea how to stop Luke from continuing his vampire hunts. He had followed this god of slaughter all across America specifically to clean up after him-or, rather, to keep him under surveillance.

After the first battle, S.H.I.E.L.D. had learned most of the details of Luke's strength. After throwing Luke's old file into the shredder, Director Fury had ordered Coulson to stay close to Luke and ensure he remained under control.

God knew how the director expected him to control someone like that. Fortunately, this battle had caused enough of a scene that Coulson could get Luke to pause his hunts first, then tell him S.H.I.E.L.D. had canceled the vampire bounties. That should get Luke to settle down.

Coulson wiped the sweat from his forehead and sent Fury a message, then directed the agents to clean up the battlefield. If the media found out, there was no telling what sort of trouble would follow.

Fury received the message and nodded. He turned and pressed a button, and a ghostly figure appeared before him.

"You want a ceasefire, is that right?" Fury said gravely, looking at these vampire elders.

The ghostly figure remained silent for a long time before finally nodding.

"Get out of this country. That's my condition. Otherwise, there's nothing I can do to directly command a civilian vampire hunter."

The vampire elder clenched his fingers in anger. For the past several months, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s people had been following that man around, and now they were telling him he wasn't one of theirs? Who were they trying to fool?

But there was nothing he could do. That man was rather powerful, and at this rate, he would eventually come after him. If he hadn't used the threat of war to pressure this Egghead, he wouldn't have been able to stop that bastard at all.

Meanwhile, Pepper looked at the disconnected call on her phone and shook her head helplessly.

Collecting herself, Pepper took the thick stack of documents in her hands downstairs to find Tony.

Not long afterward, a portal opened there.

"The footage has been deleted. Hello, Mr. Luke. It's been a long time."

JARVIS's voice came from a speaker in the corner.

Luke gave the camera a thumbs-up. "JARVIS, I feel like you're getting smarter and smarter. You even know how to greet people now."

The camera turned slightly. "Mr. Stark designed a new language module and emotional module for me. The credit is entirely his."

"Yeah, I'll be sure to tell him you praised him." Luke ran downstairs and saw the two of them opening champagne.

He knocked on the glass and called out loudly, "Did I come at a bad time?"

Thanks to the soundproof glass's excellent performance, neither of them heard a word, though he did successfully attract their attention.

"You really did." Tony pulled a helpless face. He wasn't that stupid; he waited until Luke entered the code and came inside before speaking.

"Well, I'm terribly sorry, but celebrating without inviting me is the real disappointment here." Luke walked toward Tony, only to cover his nose and quickly step back.

"Oh my God, Tony, what have you been drinking? It smells awful!"

"Is it that obvious?" Tony looked back at Pepper.

Pepper nodded and silently covered her nose.

"Fine, I've been drinking chlorophyll juice to replenish some nutrients I've been lacking lately. I recommend you have a glass, too. Builds a healthy body."

Tony spoke helplessly. He had thought no one would notice.

"I had no idea that stuff could build a healthy body," Luke said, his voice muffled behind his hand.

"Come on, it can't smell that unbearable!" Tony walked toward Luke helplessly.

"Go away! Stay back! I have no idea how Pepper put up with it!" Luke backed away frantically.

The two chased each other around the garage while Pepper shook her head at the pair, whose combined age didn't exceed ten...

Pepper soon went upstairs. Tony had just handed the CEO position over to her, and she needed to hurry and deal with the thousands of matters that had piled up at the Stark Group, as well as complete the paperwork for her promotion.

Meanwhile, Luke and Tony stared at each other in silence in the basement.

"You're making me feel like I'm in danger, considering you're several times stronger than I am," Tony said, breaking the silence first.

"More accurately, over ten times. Considering someone spends all day at home without exercising, that number might need to go a little higher." Luke folded his arms and surveyed the garage, soon spotting the juicer in the corner. "But don't worry. I'm still into women, not men who like drinking unidentified liquids."

"While I'm glad to hear I'm not in danger, I still have to stress one thing. You need to lower that number a little. I've been working out lately. My house is so big that I put a gym right here at home." Tony kept his expression unchanged and spoke with feigned composure.

Seeing Luke's gaze fixed on the juicer in the corner, Tony asked, "Where have you been lately? You really haven't contacted me in a long time."

Turning back, Luke said, "I went traveling and did a little cleanup work on the side."

"I've been clearing out the vampires lurking in this country."

Luke spoke seriously.

"All right, I remember you're still that organization's security consultant. Maybe you really have been dealing with some of those 'vampires' leeching off the taxpayers. Yeah, those guys are awful..."

Tony hadn't finished speaking when Luke interrupted him.

"Actual vampires. The kind that drink human blood. Tony, I don't believe you haven't noticed."

Tony looked into Luke's eyes, then quickly turned away guiltily. He had been keeping track of Luke's whereabouts lately and had naturally discovered some clues that let him know things like vampires existed in this world.

"Uh, fine. I did hear something about it, and I know those things exist. But isn't that supposed to be classified? Is it okay for you to just say it outright?"

"Tony..." Luke paused. "I won't lie to my friends, and I don't want my friends to lie to me."

"What exactly is happening to you?"

Tony turned to look at Luke. After staying still for a moment, he reluctantly lifted his shirt.

"That's absolutely disgusting." Luke looked at the purple lines around Tony's reactor.

Seeing Tony's expression grow steadily worse, Luke stepped forward and pressed a hand against the reactor, letting dark energy seep into Tony's body.

Although Luke's dark energy couldn't heal anyone other than himself, it could expend itself against other forms of energy and matter, mutually annihilating them.

Tony felt something enter his body, but he made no rash moves and let Luke continue.

Soon, Luke withdrew his hand. Tony lowered his shirt and let out a relieved breath.

"Buddy, that was the first time a man's ever been inside me, and it was a terrible experience!"

Tony touched his chest, feeling much better.

"What did you do?" Tony lifted his shirt and discovered that the purple lines on his chest had disappeared.

"Oh my God, you saved me! If I'd known, I would've told you sooner," Tony said with a laugh.

Luke shook his head helplessly. "I just gave the toxins in your body a basic purge. As long as that light bulb is still inside you, those toxins will keep harming you."

Tony stopped. He wasn't an idiot. He had simply been so happy just now that he had forgotten everything else. Once he calmed down, he realized Luke hadn't lied to him.

"All right, then you can just give me a spa treatment every so often." Tony lowered his shirt and shrugged helplessly.

Luke didn't want Tony to simply accept his fate. "I've already gone up against those guys, and I can't guarantee I'll survive their retaliation. You'd better cure yourself so you can come help me."

"So you're here to ask for help?" Tony raised an eyebrow.

"That's right. I'm here to ask Tony Stark, the greatest genius in history, for help," Luke said.

"Oh my God, you actually know how to compliment me!" Tony cried in surprise. "JARVIS, remember to save that video to my cloud server. I'm definitely going to enjoy watching it later."

"Save that for later. Do you have any way to save yourself right now?"

Tony suddenly fell silent.

"I've tried every element on Earth, but none of them can replace palladium."

Looking at Tony's grim expression, Luke thought for a moment.

"Don't lose heart. You're the best scientist there is. Why not go out and take a good walk? Some guy discovered gravity after an apple hit him. Maybe all you're missing is a little inspiration. Who knows? Something might knock it into you."

Seeing Tony's reluctance to move, Luke continued, "At least you could do everything you want to do. That way, you could die in peace, right?"

Tony looked up at Luke. "All right, you've convinced me. But you'd better not run away now. You have to let me have a blast fulfilling my wishes first."