Selene's hands slapped against the incoming armored knee, catching the strike just in time. She absorbed the bone-jarring impact, then whipped her leg up and back in a high-velocity scorpion kick. Her boot cracked hard against the side of Tony's helmet with a loud metallic thud. The blow forced him to retreat a few steps, his thrusters grinding as they stabilized him.
The movement created space, and Selene used it to breathe. She wiped a smear of blood from her split lip with the back of her fist, the coppery taste sharp on her tongue. Her eyes never left Tony's chest plate. The crack had spread, spiderwebbing across the armor. She could see sparks of circuitry and the silver of internal mechanisms through the gaps.
One more solid hit. That was all she needed to shatter his defenses and claim victory.
Inside the suit, warning lights painted Tony's HUD in a symphony of flashing red. JARVIS's voice was disturbingly calm, a matter-of-fact tone that contrasted with the chaos.
"Sir, structural integrity is critical. Suit malfunction is imminent."
Tony's jaw tightened. No more playing it safe. He launched himself forward.
They collided in the center of the ruined arena. With JARVIS running combat operations, Tony abandoned all pretense of energy conservation. Repulsor blasts, sustained beams, rapid-fire charges of the chest cannon. He threw everything at her without hesitation, the air crackling with ozone and heat.
If this dragged on any longer, he'd lose by default when the suit simply fell apart around him.
The sheer, overwhelming onslaught kept Selene on the defensive. She couldn't find a single opening to use her vibrating palm technique. Standard strikes barely scratched the armor, and dodging the barrage of energy took all her focus. The repulsor blasts she could handle, gritting her teeth as her healing factor worked to close the burns. But the sustained beams and the chest cannon would core her like an apple. Those, she had to avoid completely.
The arena floor disintegrated under the barrage. Intact stone became a memory. Everything was rubble and smoking blast craters now.
Selene tried multiple times to use her speed, to rush Tony and knock him physically out of the ring. End it with a ring-out. But every time she gathered herself to charge, the arc reactor in his chest would flare, the white-hot light a clear warning. The message was obvious: rush me and die. And besides, Tony could still fly. He'd just boost clear if she managed to push him toward the edge.
So she kept moving, circling, a black blur weaving through the destruction, never giving him a clean shot. Never letting him corner her.
Tony felt good, almost detached, with JARVIS handling the heavy lifting. The AI's targeting was flawless, keeping Selene suppressed and purely reactive. But one thing was impossible to ignore. A gauge on his HUD was plummeting.
His energy reserves.
"Sir, at current consumption rates, our probability of victory decreases proportionally with remaining power. We are burning through reserves far too quickly."
Tony knew. God, did he know. But what choice did he have? His ammunition was spent. Energy weapons were all he had left.
The battle raged on. Selene came within inches of landing a kill shot twice, her hand blurring as it shot toward the crack, but both times she nearly caught a full-power chest beam to the torso. If her reflexes had been a fraction of a second slower, she'd be dead.
They broke apart again, circling each other in the dust. Selene crouched, preparing to charge one more time.
Then Tony stopped moving entirely. His suit settled, the whine of the repulsors dying. His faceplate split open with a hydraulic hiss.
"Selene. What's your wish?"
Selene froze mid-step. Tony had opened his helmet. He had left himself completely, suicidally vulnerable. She could close the distance in a heartbeat and end this. But something in his expression, the strained, non-combative look on his face, stopped her. Instead of attacking, she straightened up, breathing hard. She answered honestly.
"My people hunger for sunlight. But the sun is our greatest enemy. Our fatal weakness."
"I want to remove this curse from my race," she said, her voice raspy. "Let us walk in daylight like everyone else. No more hiding in shadows. No more being prisoners of the night."
Tony nodded slowly, processing that. A small, tired smile tugged at his lips. "That's a pretty selfless wish. Fighting for your people instead of just yourself."
He let out a short breath. "You know what? I'd like to buy you a drink after this. Compare notes."
"As for me?" He shrugged, a small movement inside the bulky suit. "I'm a billionaire genius inventor who moonlights as Iron Man. The world already knows my name. I don't really need a magic wish to get what I want."
"So here's what I'm thinking. I'm going to let you get your wish"
His voice, now un-amplified, carried across the arena. He turned and yelled, "Smith! I forfeit."
He turned and walked toward the ring's edge with measured, heavy steps. When he reached the boundary, he sat down, swung his legs over, and jumped down to the ground below.
For a moment, the entire crowd sat in stunned silence. The only sound was the wind. Then the applause started. It began with one person, then a few, and then it built into a deafening roar.
In the contestant section, Xu Shang Chi watched Tony's dramatic exit, his eyes wide. He leaned toward his sister, his voice uncertain. "Xialing, if we'd made it to the finals and told him our wish was to bring Mom back... do you think he would have stepped aside for us, too?"
Xu Xialing's eyes rolled so hard it looked like it had to hurt. "You're an idiot."
Smith materialized on the arena floor, his face unreadable. Selene looked worse for wear. Abrasions covered her exposed skin. Her vaunted healing factor seemed exhausted; the various cuts and burns were closing far slower than they had at the fight's start. An hour of dodging laser fire, tanking repulsor blasts, and constant high-speed movement had taken its toll. Her black suit hung in tatters, scorched, shredded, and stained with her own blood.
Smith took her wrist and raised her arm high. "The winner of the first Dragon Ball Tournament: The Death Dealer, Elder of Vampire…..Selene!"
"Let's hear it for your champion!"
The crowd erupted. Cheers and applause washed over the arena. After days of competition, they finally had their winner.
Under the black tarpaulin, the vampire section went wild. Their voices rose in a muffled but ecstatic celebration. Finally, they had a path forward. No more cowering from the sun. No more being half-alive, locked away from daylight. Soon, they'd be able to walk freely under the sun like any human.
At first, Selene felt a wave of genuine gratitude toward Tony. His gesture had seemed noble, heroic even. Then she watched him. She watched him walk down from the ring instead of flying. Watched him trudge across the ground, step by careful, heavy step.
The pieces clicked together in her mind.
He hadn't forfeited out of kindness. He'd run out of power. The suit was dead.
Still... he had framed his defeat as a gift. That took style. She caught his eye from across the way and gave a small, sharp nod, acknowledging the grace in his exit.
Tony made his way back to his section. Pepper's expression was complicated, a mixture of profound relief and utter exasperation. Happy just looked confused.
"Boss, I didn't know you had such a generous side," Happy said, beaming. "Very heroic. Very Iron Man."
"But uh... why'd you walk back? I figured you'd just fly over here."
Tony's glare could have melted steel. He ignored his bodyguard entirely.
If he'd had power left, would he have quit? Would he have walked off that ring like some schmuck? Would he have hiked back to his seat instead of flying?
Fighting a speedster with nothing but energy weapons was brutal on the reserves. Lesson learned.
"JARVIS," he muttered, "open the suit."
The AI used the last trickle of auxiliary power to unlock the armor. The plates separated with a slow, grinding hiss. Tony stepped out, leaving the hollow shell behind him. The arc reactor in his chest barely glowed now, just a faint, flickering blue light. It was just enough juice to keep the shrapnel in his chest from migrating to his heart. It wasn't enough to run the suit. It wasn't enough for anything else.
Smith's voice rang out across the arena, cutting through the celebration. "The first Dragon Ball Tournament is now concluded! Staff will escort contestants and general spectators off the island shortly."
"Let the staff know which city you need to return to. If you don't specify, we will take you back to your original pickup location."
"The tournament winner and her guests may remain on the island."
"The runner-up and his guests have the privilege of witnessing the wish ceremony and may also stay."
The announcement sent disappointed murmurs through the crowd. Everyone wanted to stay for the wish-granting ceremony, to see actual magic happen. But the decision wasn't theirs to make. Staff members began moving through the stands, politely guiding people toward the aircraft, herding them off the island in organized groups.