Three days had passed. Goku placed a small handful of golden Galleons into the calloused hand of a middle-aged farmer and, in exchange, received the final Dragon Ball.
The Summoning Charm, Accio, had been a godsend for quickly retrieving spheres hidden in the untamed wilderness. However, magic hit a snag when the Dragon Balls were already in someone else's possession.
If a ball was locked inside a reinforced cabinet or a basement safe, it wouldn't just fly through solid walls. Even if it did, if the owner saw a glowing sphere suddenly zoom out of their house, they tended to grab it, preventing it from reaching Goku's hand.
To the average person, a dormant Dragon Ball might just look like an orange glass marble, but a restored, glowing sphere was a collector's dream. For such social complications, Grandpa Dumbledore had prepared a very "wizarding" solution: solve the problem with cold, hard cash.
And the effect was brilliant.
Having captured nearly every high-profile dark wizard on the international wanted lists—with bounties ranging from a few hundred to several thousand Galleons—Goku's personal vault now held over a million gold coins. He was, quite literally, a millionaire. In the face of his gold, no farmer or collector could resist.
As he tucked the final sphere into his magical trunk, the sky began to bleed into the deep purples of twilight. Goku summoned the Flying Nimbus, found a quiet stretch of forest to hunt his dinner, and eventually leaned against the trunk of a massive ancient tree, closing his eyes.
However, this time, he didn't intend to sleep until morning.
Over the past year, Goku had made a discovery about the white space. He didn't need a full night's rest to trigger the transition; even a brief nap would do. The trick was in the posture.
If he slept sitting up or leaning awkwardly, he would enter the white space, but the lack of physical support in that void would cause him to "fall" and wake up instantly within the dream realm.
Three seconds after his eyes closed against the tree, his physical form vanished. He reappeared in the white void, still in a leaning posture. Since there was no tree to support him there, he immediately tumbled onto the floor, his eyes snapping open.
He stood up and walked toward the door labeled "Marvel World." Ten months had passed since his last visit, and he was curious to see what had changed.
He pushed the door open.
The exit point was exactly where he had left: ten thousand meters in the air, directly above New York City. But the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier was long gone. Goku found himself plummeting through the clouds at terminal velocity.
"Whoa! Nimbu—wait, I didn't bring it to this world!"
He reflexively tried to call his cloud before remembering the dimensional constraints. However, falling from the stratosphere didn't panic him. To a normal human, this was a death sentence; to Goku, it was a minor inconvenience.
Even without a tail or a cloud, his body was durable enough to survive the impact. And if things got dicey, he could always fire a Kamehameha toward the ground to act as a reverse thruster.
But now, he had a more elegant solution.
"Arresto Momentum!"
Waving his finger in a circular motion, Goku felt his descent jerk and then smooth out. His rapid fall slowed until he was drifting downward as light as a balloon. It was a charm typically used by wizards who fell off their broomsticks.
Speaking of brooms, Dumbledore had gifted him a Nimbus 2000—the fastest broom in the wizarding world—which was currently tucked away in his trunk. Goku didn't care much for it, though; it felt clunky, and he could run faster on foot than the broom could fly. He much preferred the sentient golden cloud.
...
Below him, in the heart of Manhattan, stood the iconic Stark Industries headquarters.
"Pepper, you're out of time!"
Obadiah Stane, encased in the massive Iron Monger suit—a hulking, weaponized beast based on Tony Stark's original Mark I design—aimed a massive rotary cannon at Pepper Potts.
Eight months ago, Obadiah had paid a terrorist cell in the Middle East to erase Tony Stark from the board so he could take total control of the company. The "fools" hadn't killed him, though; they'd kept him alive to build missiles.
Tony had escaped using a suit made of scrap metal, returned home, and promptly tanked the company's stock by shutting down the weapons division.
Obadiah had used the board of directors to sideline Tony, but a month ago, he'd realized Tony was back in the game with a far superior suit of armor.
Seeing the potential, Obadiah had personally visited the Middle East, slaughtered his former terrorist associates, retrieved the remains of the Mark I, and tasked Stark Industries' best scientists with creating the Iron Monger.
The suit was a masterpiece of destruction, but it lacked a heart. The scientists couldn't replicate the Arc Reactor. With Pepper discovering the evidence of his betrayal, Obadiah had decided to clean house. He'd paralyzed Tony, ripped the reactor from his chest, and was now here to eliminate the final witness.
"Stop!"
A streak of gold and red slammed into the Iron Monger, tackling the giant through the glass and onto the street below. Tony Stark, powered by an older, low-energy reactor, had arrived in the Mark III.
"Stay down!" Obadiah roared. He grabbed Tony and hurled him across the asphalt. "I built this company from nothing! I won't let anyone take it from me, not even you, Tony!"
Obadiah stood in the center of the street and reached down, hoisting a passing sedan high above his head. Inside, a family of five screamed in absolute terror.
"First of all," Tony panted, standing up and secretly charging his chest-mounted Unibeam, "my father built the company. You were just the... well... the glorified errand boy. Second, put them down!"
"No one stands in my way!" Obadiah's ego was bruised. He believed his suit, backed by the collective intelligence of the weapons division and powered by Tony's newest reactor, was invincible.
Tony signaled Jarvis to concentrate all remaining power into the Unibeam. He planned to blast Obadiah before the car was thrown and catch the vehicle in mid-air.
Just as the tension reached its breaking point, a small figure drifted down from the sky, landing lightly on the pavement exactly between the two titans of metal.
Goku looked left at the Iron Monger, then right at Iron Man. He blinked in curiosity.
"Are you guys having a duel?"
***
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