Ethan listened as Tony enthusiastically explained the features of the new armor, but the longer the explanation continued, the more something felt off. The description sounded less like equipment for a simple trip and more like preparation for a full-scale battle.
"Stop," Ethan said suddenly, cutting Tony off mid-sentence.
Tony paused, clearly surprised by the interruption.
Ethan frowned and asked, "We're going there to find someone. Why did you install so many weapons?"
Tony froze for a moment as the question sank in. After a brief silence, realization dawned on him.
That was right. They were only going to find someone. Why exactly had he spent so much time loading the armor with offensive systems?
In fact, installing those weapons had forced him to stay awake all night. The entire job could have been finished in a few hours if he had skipped them.
But he was Tony Stark. Admitting he had overdone it was simply not an option.
Clearing his throat, he forced a confident expression onto his face. "Are you sure they'll be friendly?" he argued. "What if things turn into a fight?"
Ethan immediately shot back, "If I can't handle the situation, do you really think your armor will make a difference?"
Tony's face flushed slightly.
When he designed the modifications, he had been thinking about what kind of civilization Attilan might be. What he had completely forgotten was that Ethan was going with them.
With Ethan there, it was unlikely they would even have a chance to fight.
Tony crossed his arms stubbornly. "Well, it's already installed. What do you want me to do now?"
Ethan sighed. "Forget it. Removing everything would just waste more time. Let's leave now. Do you need to inform Pepper?"
"I told her yesterday," Tony replied casually. "If she wasn't so busy, we'd have five suits of armor right now."
Ethan stared at him in disbelief.
They were about to visit a hidden civilization on the moon. Even if it was technically still within Earth's sphere, it was still an alien city.
And Tony was treating the whole thing like a casual spring outing.
"So which one is mine?" Ethan asked.
Tony pointed toward the four suits lined up in front of them. "Blue is yours. Red belongs to Wanda. Pietro gets the black-and-gray one. If anything goes wrong while you're inside the armor, just call J.A.R.V.I.S. It'll help you solve the problem."
Ethan nodded, but then another thought suddenly crossed his mind.
"What if I need to use the bathroom?"
Tony's expression changed instantly.
"Then go now," he snapped.
Ethan shrugged calmly. "I'm just saying. J.A.R.V.I.S isn't a miracle worker."
Tony ignored him completely and climbed into his armor with a sour expression.
Ethan, Wanda, and Pietro followed suit and stepped into their own suits.
The armor closed around them with a soft mechanical sound. Darkness briefly covered Ethan's vision for less than a second before the internal display activated, replacing the blackness with a bright interface and a wide 180-degree viewing screen.
A familiar voice echoed through the helmet.
"Hello, Mr. Ethan. It is a pleasure to serve you."
"Hello, J.A.R.V.I.S.," Ethan replied.
Moments later, the communication systems connected all four of them to a shared voice channel.
"Alright, Tony," Ethan said. "Let's go."
"What do we need to do, Uncle Tony?" Pietro asked.
"You don't have to do anything," Tony replied casually. "Just leave it to J.A.R.V.I.S. It'll take about two hours for the armor to reach the moon. During that time you can watch movies, browse the internet, or chat."
After a brief pause, Tony added with obvious curiosity, "By the way, Pietro, I've always wondered something. Are the Inhumans… biologically the same as humans in that area?"
Pietro instantly understood what he meant and looked embarrassed.
"I… I never had that kind of relationship with Crystal," he admitted awkwardly.
"Pietro, you're unbelievable," Wanda said with clear disdain.
She shook her head as if she couldn't believe his incompetence, completely forgetting that she herself had spent five or six years unsuccessfully trying to win Ethan's attention.
"Pietro," Tony said seriously, "it looks like I'll need to teach you some techniques for charming women. You know, no woman has ever resisted me for more than two days."
"Including Pepper?" Ethan asked casually.
Tony hesitated for a second. "Pepper is different."
"So how many days?" Ethan pressed.
Tony immediately went silent.
He had spent years chasing Pepper before finally winning her over after becoming Iron Man.
"Uncle Tony," Pietro said quickly, trying to change the subject, "please teach me those tricks."
"Alright," Tony said happily. "Let's open another private channel."
A moment later, Tony pulled Pietro into a separate voice chat to begin his so-called lesson.
Meanwhile, Ethan stayed in the main channel with Wanda. Whenever she was around him, Wanda seemed to have endless topics to talk about, jumping from one random subject to another.
The distance between Earth and the moon was over 360,000 kilometers.
Light could cross that distance in just over a second, while sound would take more than three hundred hours.
The top speed of the Mark Moon Armor was Mach 5, roughly five times the speed of sound. Under normal conditions, that meant traveling from Earth to the moon would theoretically take about sixty hours.
But space had no air resistance.
Without atmospheric drag slowing them down, the armor could accelerate continuously. Because of that, the entire trip would only take about two hours.
Most of the time was actually spent escaping Earth's atmosphere.
Time passed quickly.
Soon, J.A.R.V.I.S's voice echoed through Ethan's helmet again.
"Mr. Ethan, we have reached the far side of the moon."
"Ethan," Tony asked, "what's next?"
Satellites launched earlier had never detected any structures on the far side of the moon. As a result, the task of locating Attilan rested entirely on Ethan.
"Give me a moment," Ethan said.
He reached into his golden storage space and pulled out Captain Jack Sparrow's compass.
The enchanted compass spun slowly before locking onto a direction.
"Over there," Ethan said.
The four armored figures moved together through the silent lunar landscape.
After a short distance, they stopped.
"Ethan," Tony said skeptically, "are you sure this is the right place?"
There was absolutely nothing in front of them.
The terrain looked exactly like the rest of the moon—endless craters, gray dust, and barren wasteland stretching in every direction.
But Ethan knew the compass wasn't wrong.
More importantly, he knew Attilan was hidden behind a massive protective barrier. The shield served two purposes: defending the city and hiding it from outsiders.
Unfortunately for the shield, it wasn't strong enough to hide from Ethan.
He put the compass back into his golden space and pulled out his wand.
Then he pointed it forward and cast the spell.
"Reveal yourself!"
A beam of white light shot out from the wand and struck the empty air hundreds of meters ahead. The spell collided with something invisible, sending ripples spreading outward like waves across a surface.
Moments later, the illusion shattered.
An enormous city suddenly appeared in front of them.
"What is that?" Tony said excitedly. "Some kind of force-field shield? J.A.R.V.I.S, analyze it."
As the four of them flew closer, the scene inside the barrier gradually became clearer.
But what they saw was far from peaceful.
Shouts and screams echoed through the city. People were fighting everywhere, and bodies were scattered across the ground.
More than ninety percent of them looked like corpses.
"What's going on down there?" Tony asked. "Some kind of holiday celebration?"
Ethan stared at him speechlessly.
"What kind of holiday involves piles of dead bodies?"
He quickly realized what had likely happened.
There was an eighty percent chance that the younger brother of Attilan's king had started another coup.
The leader of the Inhumans—Black Bolt—and his brother Maximus had a relationship almost identical to Thor and Loki.
The younger brother constantly dreamed about becoming king, and the older brother spent his time cleaning up the mess.
....
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