Tony Stark gasped as his eyes snapped open. He flickered into existence like a supercomputer being jump-started with a lightning bolt. His eyes glowing with a faint blue light that mirrored the Arc Reactor.
The physical sensation was secondary to the mental explosion. With Cognitive Multitasking (Gamma Level), the "monologue" in Tony's head—the single stream of consciousness he'd lived with for decades—shattered into three independent high-definition processors.
It was like being three people at once.
Thread One remained grounded in his biological senses, feeling the cool air of the workshop and the hum of the floor.
Thread Two was a pure calculation engine, running billions of "what-if" simulations on the structural integrity of a new alloy.
Thread Three became the bridge to his surroundings, the specialized frequency that allowed him to interact with the world of silicon and electricity.
Tony reached out with an invisible tether. Within a ten-meter radius, the workshop stopped being a room and started being an extension of his own body.
He didn't just see his servers; he felt the heat of their CPUs. He didn't just look at the Mark armor; he felt the tension in its servos and the charge in its capacitors. To Tony, every machine was now a "limb" he hadn't known he possessed.
Tony sat in the center of the workshop, his eyes closed, yet his mind was seeing more than it ever had. He reached out with a neural nudge, tapping into the local server bank like a musician striking a chord.
"Jarvis," he whispered.
The command rippled through the room's Wi-Fi mesh and hardwired fiber optics as a direct, encrypted data packet birthed from Tony's own thoughts.
A flicker of light danced across the holographic consoles. There was a pause—a digital hesitation that Tony had never felt from his AI before.
"Sir?" Jarvis's voice resonated through the speakers, sounding uncharacteristically puzzled. "I processed a command for a full system diagnostic and the activation of the robotic assembly line... however, my audio sensors did not record you speaking. Furthermore, the command originated from inside the primary server firewall. Did you install a remote uplink while I was in sleep mode?"
Tony opened his eyes, a sharp glint in his pupils. "No uplink, JARVIS. Just a new OS. How did the command look on your end?"
"Clean, Sir. Impeccably fast," Jarvis replied. "In fact, the latency was zero. It was as if the thought and the execution were the same event. It was... quite startling," if an artificial intelligence can claim to be startled. "May I ask how you are interfacing with the workshop's local area network without your HUD or a neural-link headset?"
"I am the headset now, Jarvis," Tony said, his Technopathy allowing him to 'see' the code structure of Jarvis's personality core. He could feel the AI's subroutines humming, a complex lattice of logic that he could now touch with his mind. "I can see your logic gates, Jarvis. I can see the way you're processing this conversation in real-time."
"That is... deeply invasive, Sir," Jarvis remarked, though his tone remained dry. "And yet, remarkably efficient. I am seeing a three-hundred-percent increase in data transfer speeds between your location and the main frame."
"Get used to it," Tony smirked, his Cognitive Multitasking already beginning to partition a section of his brain to act as a high-speed bridge to the AI.
"We're done with keyboards. From now on, if I think it, you do it. Let's see how fast you can really run when I'm not bottlenecking you with my vocal cords."
"Understood, Sir," Jarvis replied, the holographic displays around the room suddenly spinning with newfound velocity. "I shall endeavor to keep up with your... expanded horizons."
Without touching a keyboard, Tony began his brilliant experiments:
Around him, six robotic arms—DUM-E, U, and four others—began to dance. There was no lag, no verbal command, and no pre-programmed script. Tony was "piloting" each arm individually through his multitasking mind, assembling a complex gauntlet with the precision of a master watchmaker, his eyes closed as he "felt" the screws tightening through the sensors of the bots.
He projected a 3D hologram of the city's power grid, but it didn't stay on the screen. Through his technopathy, he pulled the data into his mind, "seeing" the energy flow of the entire Malibu coast overlaying his physical vision.
He grabbed a piece of scrap metal. While his first thread analyzed its texture, his second thread calculated its melting point, and his third thread—via technopathy—commanded a nearby laser cutter to fire with micro-millimeter accuracy, carving a perfect "T" into the metal without Tony even glancing at the machine.
"It's not just fast," Tony breathed, his three minds converging on a single realization. "It's honest. Machines don't lie. And now, I'm the one telling them the truth."
He stood up, the robotic arms retracting in a perfect salute. For the first time, Tony Stark wasn't just a man in a suit of armor. He was the Ghost in the Machine, a digital sovereign whose kingdom was every circuit and wire within his reach.
———
In the sterile, vibranium reinforced heart of the Birnin Zana laboratories, the air was thick with the scent of ozone and the hum of experimental tech. Shuri circled T'Challa, her eyes darting between her brother and the holographic readouts hovering from her Kimoyo beads.
"Brother, your molecular density is off the charts," she remarked, "You look... different. More grounded. As if the Earth itself is refusing to let you budge."
T'Challa stood in the center of a testing ring, his posture relaxed. "The suit was a conduit, Shuri. Now, I am the battery. Let us begin."
Shuri didn't hesitate. She dialed a sonic-pulse cannon to its medium-low setting—a blast capable of shattering concrete. The translucent wave of compressed sound roared across the room, slamming into T'Challa's chest with a visible ripple.
Normally, the laws of physics would have dictated he be thrown through the far wall. Instead, the moment the wave touched his skin, it stopped. No sound of impact, no staggering. His Kinetic Absorption (700kJ) sparked to life, his skin shimmering with a obsidian sheen for a fraction of a second.
"Impossible," Shuri breathed, running to her console. "The sensors didn't record a reflection or a deflection. The energy... it didn't dissipate into the air. Your body literally swallowed the sound."
"Increase the load," T'Challa commanded.
Shuri activated the overhead hydraulic press. A 500kg pressurized weight was lowered slowly onto T'Challa's shoulders, then suddenly released. The weight hit with enough force to crush a car, but T'Challa didn't even bend his knees. A faint glow began to pulse beneath his skin, radiating from his solar plexus to his fingertips.
"It's not just stored in your muscles," Shuri noted, "It's being integrated into your bone marrow. Your skeletal structure is acting like a high-capacity capacitor. T'Challa, you are becoming a living Vibranium alloy."
Driven by a mix of excitement and disbelief, Shuri initiated the 'Gauntlet' protocol. Small turrets emerged from the walls, firing high-velocity rubber pellets and localized heat bursts. T'Challa closed his eyes, letting the barrage hit him.
Each pellet that struck him simply lost all momentum the millisecond it touched him and fell to the floor like a lead weight. The heat bursts were absorbed so efficiently that the air around him actually felt cooler.
"I can feel it, Shuri," T'Challa said, his voice resonating with a strange power. "The more the world tries to break me, the more energy I have to give back. I am no longer just the King of Wakanda. I am the mountain that refuses to move."
Shuri stared at the final readout. He had absorbed nearly 650kJ of varied energy and showed zero signs of fatigue. In fact, his vitals were better than when they started. He was an immovable object, a human fortress ready to walk through fire and steel without flinching.
————
Deep beneath the Atlantic, within the royal chambers of Talokan, Namor felt the shift most profoundly. As he sat on his throne of whalebone, the Cellular Hydration kicked in. For the first time in his life, the slight "itch" of his dual-nature—the constant need for water to maintain his peak strength—vanished. He felt 100% powerful, 100% of the time.
He stood and walked out into the open ocean, the water pressure at ten thousand feet feeling like a light breeze. He triggered his Hydrokinesis. Within a 100-meter radius, the ocean obeyed him. He commanded the water molecules to launch him forward like a torpedo.
The Super Soldier Serum and Regeneration hardening his muscles into something resembling living marble. But it was the Marine Life Telepathy that truly expanded his horizon. This was a ancestral resonance.
As a pod of Orcas—the apex predators of the sea—glided through the dark thermal currents nearby, Namor reached out. He felt their hunger, their familial bonds, and their ancient map of the ocean floor.
"Go," he signaled, his mind projecting a clear intent. "Guard the northern vents. Report any heat signatures that do not belong to the tide."
The lead Orca, a massive bull, slowed its pace. Namor felt a ripple of acknowledgement—a rhythmic pulse of respect. The beasts bowed their heads in a slow-motion arc before veering off into the gloom.
Namor realized the specific boundaries of this power. At its current Beta Level, he possessed Command Authority over the lesser and intermediate creatures of the deep. They recognized him as the Apex, the King whose will was law. However, he sensed a threshold. Should he encounter the truly ancient horrors of the midnight zone—creatures of mythic scale or alien intelligence—this "command" might falter.
But for now, the conversation was absolute. He could "hear" the chatter of the dolphins miles away and the vibrating thoughts of the whales.
He spoke with a school of tuna, sensing the subtle changes in water temperature and salt content they had encountered across the horizon.
He communicated with an octopus camouflaged against a nearby reef, receiving a "mental snapshot" of a surface-world submarine that had passed by hours ago.
"I am no longer a King sitting on a throne," Namor whispered into the water, the sound carried by the very molecules he now partially controlled via his Hydrokinesis. "I am the nervous system of the entire ocean. Every fin that moves, every gill that breathes... they are my eyes and ears."
His excitement was a dark fire. He began practicing his combat forms, his movements so fluid and fast that he appeared to be teleporting through the water. With his Cellular Hydration protecting him from any exhaustion, he realized he could fight for weeks without rest.
Namor's excitement manifested in a display of raw combat. Using Bullet Time, he practiced his spear forms, moving so fast that he created underwater cavitations—bubbles of vacuum that exploded with the force of grenades. With his Boy Eye, he could see the thermal vents of the earth through miles of rock.
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