"How could this be?!"
Max Dillon stared at the screen of his phone like it had just shown him the end of the world. The color drained from his face so fast it was almost shocking, and the panic in his eyes only grew with each line he read. A second later, that panic spilled over into something raw and unstable, leaving him visibly shaken.
"How is that possible?" he blurted out, almost choking on the words. "How could Spider-Man—Peter Parker—kill somebody?"
"This can't be real. It just can't."
Outside, the media had already started using names like Spider Demon without a shred of hesitation. They printed it in headlines, pushed it through apps, and repeated it on television until it sounded like fact. But Max didn't accept any of it, because in his mind, he had his own way of judging people, and Spider-Man had already earned his faith.
He had watched Spider-Man for a long time. He had followed every appearance, every rescue, every fight, every rumor. Even if Peter's recent actions had grown darker, more aggressive, more dangerous, Max still believed in him completely. To him, Spider-Man wasn't some fallen hero or unstable freak—he was still the real deal.
Max was a true believer.
A die-hard fan.
But the article shoved in front of him by his phone refused to give him any peace. The headline was written to provoke panic, and it did exactly that. It screamed about gnaw marks found in Hell's Kitchen and hinted that Spider-Man might be responsible, as if speculation alone was enough to convict a man.
Another report followed immediately after, claiming that spider webs had been found all over the murder scene. The implication was obvious. If the webs were there, then the Spider Demon had fallen and turned into a killer. The article even included a solemn warning to the public, telling people not to stay outside late at night.
"No. That's not true," Max muttered, shaking his head hard enough to make his vision blur. "My favorite superhero would never become that kind of person."
He backed up without realizing it, his thoughts spiraling too fast for him to stay grounded. The harder he rejected the story, the more violently he moved, and that frantic motion cost him. His heel slipped on the edge of the stair, and in an instant, his balance vanished.
He hit the steps hard.
Then he kept falling.
The momentum dragged him downward, his body slamming against the stairs as he tumbled toward the lower level. At the very last second, his hand shot out on instinct and caught the railing. The jolt nearly ripped his shoulder out of place, but it stopped him from dropping straight down.
For one breathless moment, he just hung there.
Then he looked down.
Beneath him was the bioelectric chamber on the third basement level, the place he knew better than anyone else in the building. Rows of tanks gleamed under the harsh industrial lights, and inside them, electric eels writhed through the water in dense, restless masses. Pale blue currents flashed over their bodies, weaving through the tanks like living lightning.
The voltage in there wasn't just dangerous.
It was catastrophic.
If he fell, he knew exactly what would happen.
Max started struggling desperately, kicking against empty air and trying to pull himself back up with trembling arms. His fingers burned against the metal rail, slick with sweat, and little by little, his grip started to fail. He tried to readjust, tried to tighten his hold, tried to fight the inevitable—but his hand kept sliding.
An inch.
Then another.
Then more.
At last, despair flooded his face. He shut his eyes as if refusing to watch the end come for him, and a second later, his hand slipped free completely. His body dropped into the tank below, and the moment he hit the water, the entire chamber erupted in blue-white light.
The current punched through him instantly.
It tore across his skin, his muscles, his bones, and every nerve in his body, wrapping him in blinding electric force. His body arched violently in the water as the energy surged through him without mercy, and pain on a scale no normal person could endure swallowed him whole.
It was agony.
Absolute agony.
And somewhere inside that endless pain, it was almost as if something else had answered him.
Come.
Join the glorious evolution.
At the same time, under bright morning sunlight, a very different kind of spectacle was unfolding at a military test ground outside New York. As Hammer Advanced Industries trucks rolled into the camp, soldiers from every direction started gathering near the training area, their faces full of anticipation. The atmosphere was restless and excited, because the news had already spread before the convoy even arrived.
Today's weapons exercise wasn't just another boring demonstration.
According to the morning announcement, they might be lucky enough to witness a direct showdown between two armored legends. In the minds of half the soldiers there, that translated into one thing: Iron Man versus another Iron Man. The thought alone was enough to make the whole base buzz like it was hosting a concert instead of a military drill.
Tony Stark's armor had already become a full-blown cultural craze among young people. Toy companies had seized on that popularity ages ago, pumping out endless action figures, model kits, and replicas. Those products sold like wildfire, and nobody with eyes could deny how much people loved the look of Stark's machines.
But now Hammer Advanced Industries was claiming they had created armor that could stand against Iron Man.
That claim irritated James Rhodes more than anyone else on the field.
He had already made his position clear. At the weapons demonstration, he would smash whatever garbage Hammer brought out and prove once and for all that the armor built by his friend Tony Stark was the best on the planet. In his mind, this wasn't just a test. It was personal.
Then a burst of fire dropped out of the sky.
The black armor of War Machine descended with a heavy impact, scattering dust as it landed on the training field in full view of the crowd. When the visor lifted and Rhodes' face became visible, the soldiers erupted in cheers loud enough to shake the place. He gave them a brief wave like a celebrity stepping onto a stage, then raised his voice and shut the noise down.
"All right, settle down," he said. "We've got work to do."
He turned toward the Hammer truck with all the confidence he had carried into the field, but as the rear doors slowly opened under his gaze, that confidence began to waver. He had expected another suit of armor, maybe a clunky Stark knockoff, maybe something oversized and ugly—but still something man-sized.
That wasn't what emerged first.
A pair of leather shoes stepped into view.
Then came Ivan Vanko.
He looked exactly like the kind of man people wanted to punch on sight. A toothpick hung lazily from the corner of his mouth, and he swept his eyes over the field with open contempt, as if the entire exercise bored him already.
"Looks like you're ready," he muttered.
Before Rhodes could even process why Ivan was here in person, the Russian pulled a controller from his pocket and pressed a button. A mechanical click rang out from the truck bed, followed by a deep grinding release as the internal restraints disengaged.
Then the Iron Monger revealed itself.
The reaction was immediate.
It was tall.
It was massive.
It was terrifying.
The steel monster towered over the field like something built for war on a completely different scale than anything Rhodes had expected. The moment it appeared, every eye on the training ground locked onto it. Even in a disciplined military environment, profanity started flying from every direction as soldiers forgot themselves and just stared.
A machine like this didn't invite comparison.
It crushed comparison.
Anyone who had seen War Machine before understood immediately how extreme the difference was. Rhodes' armor was powerful, sleek, and human-shaped. The Iron Monger, by contrast, looked like a giant raised on violence and metal, something so oversized that War Machine seemed almost child-sized standing across from it.
How was that supposed to be a fair fight?
Rhodes' expression darkened little by little. He had come here expecting a rival suit, not a steel beast two classes above what he had prepared himself to face. Just looking at it made the air feel heavier, and imagining what it could actually do made things worse.
Not far away, Justin Hammer strutted into view with a group of military brass gathered around him. They were talking, gesturing, commenting on the machine with obvious approval, and every second of that scene made Rhodes feel more bitter. Attention that should have been his—admiration he had grown used to receiving as the army's armored star—was now being stolen by that smug idiot and his oversized toy.
And Justin knew it.
With perfect timing, he glanced over and said, "Isn't it time to begin the exercise?"
The senior officers nodded, and one of the lower-ranking generals was sent over to formally address Rhodes. The man's tone was serious, but it carried the weight of every watching eye on the field.
"Prepare for battle," he said. "Fight well. You're representing our honor now."
"We won't let our superiors down," Rhodes answered immediately, because there was no other answer he could give.
Still, when he looked back at the Iron Monger, a cold feeling crept into his chest. He hated admitting it even to himself, but the machine in front of him made his nerves tighten. For the first time since arriving, he felt the smallest hint of weakness.
Ivan, on the other hand, looked energized.
He stood beside the Iron Monger and stared at Rhodes, but in his mind, the real target was somewhere else entirely. He wasn't thinking about James Rhodes. He was thinking about Tony Stark. If he could pilot this machine and crush the armor Tony built, then what would that mean?
Wouldn't it prove that Iron Man was nothing special after all?
That he was just another rich man hiding behind a reputation?
That the Vanko name, not Stark's, deserved to stand at the top?
With that thought burning behind his eyes, Ivan activated the machine.
A pale white light blazed to life in the Iron Monger's eye sockets, and a harsh metallic grinding sound rolled out from its frame as the whole monster woke up. Then, with a violent burst of motion, the steel giant launched itself upward and came crashing back down onto the training field.
The impact blasted a crater into the hardened ground.
Dust exploded in every direction.
And the giant machine let out a sharp metallic squeal.
.....
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