…
Grounded.
The word echoed in my head, pathetic and juvenile, as I stared at my bedroom ceiling. Three days of confinement—school, training, social life, all suspended. My mother had delivered the sentence with the absolute conviction of someone who'd seen her garden destroyed by a meteorite of solid gold.
"Still worth it," I muttered to the empty room, but the conviction had faded. The crater in the backyard had become a monument to my impulsiveness, a daily reminder visible from my window of what control I still lacked.
I rolled off the bed, landed on my feet, felt the familiar surge of energy that came from morning calories—gold-infused everything, my mother's compromise between nutrition and property preservation. The school bell would ring in twenty minutes. I was already dressed, already planning.
Soru.
The technique wasn't from this world, but my body had learned it anyway—shave off thedistance, move faster than eyes could track. I leaned against the fence outside Aldera Junior High, arms crossed, projecting impatience I didn't entirely feel. The waiting was ritual now. Tony was always late, always had some excuse involving crowds or prototypes or his father's sudden demands.
"…Three minutes," I muttered to the air.
"Wow. You started counting now?"
I looked up. Tony jogged toward me, slightly out of breath but wearing that smirk that meant he'd engineered his own delay, turned it into an entrance.
"Hm. The nerd finally arrives." I kept my voice flat. "You kept me waiting."
"Relax. There was a crowd, and it held me up." He stopped in front of me, and I saw them—the shoes, modified, repulsor-tech humming faintly. "But luckily, I had something to help me get out of it."
"Rocket boots?"
"Version two." He grinned, the expression of someone who'd spent breakfast refining thrust ratios. "Better than that ugly jetpack."
"At least I don't destroy gardens."
"…Still on that?"
"I liked that garden."
"You weren't even there."
"I saw pictures."
"…You're annoying."
"And you're reckless."
"Boys."
We both turned. Howard Stark stood by the Tesla Model S, already wearing the expression of a man who'd refereed too many disputes between children who should have known better. The car's door stood open, autonomous systems presumably active.
"Get in."
I looked at the vehicle. "I'm not getting in that electric toaster."
"It's not a toaster."
"It hums like one."
"Get. In."
I caught Tony's eye, saw the slight shake of his head—not now—and climbed into the back seat. Tony took front. The car sealed itself, hummed to life, merged into traffic without Howard touching the controls.
I opened my mouth to deliver my favorite nickname—
Click.
Restraints snapped around my chest and waist, pinning me to the seat. Howard's reflection in the rearview mirror showed absolutely no satisfaction.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
Tony laughed, but it was strained, the sound of someone who'd won a point but lost something else. "You keep falling for that."
The car accelerated, smooth and silent and wrong in a way I'd never adapt to. I preferred the roar of engines, the feedback of mechanical systems. This was too clean, too controlled.
[Unknown POV]
The target was Howard Stark.
Not the woman driving him. Not the child in the back seat, currently calculating the restraints' structural integrity, the optimal angle for escape, the likelihood that Howard carried weapons in the vehicle's armrest.
The target was him.
But when he grew close to Cybele Goldman, I observed them both.
And then—
I noticed the boy.
At first, nothing remarkable. Abnormal strength, certainly. The medical reports I'd accessed suggested cellular density beyond human norms, musculature that should have collapsed under its own weight. But strength was common. Strength was boring.
Then, when I started monitoring him systematically, I became intrigued.
Inhuman growth curve. Innate capabilities that exceeded his recorded Quirk status—none—by orders of magnitude. A mutation-type ability allowing manipulation of a specific element: gold. And the training methodology—
Nonexistent.
No structure. No restraint. No theoretical framework or disciplined progression. Just violence and adaptation, escalation without reflection, power accumulated through trauma and instinct rather than education.
He'd been climbing my list for nine years. Since the moment of his birth, really, when the first anomalous readings appeared. But recently, he'd accelerated. The awakening, the incident at the school, the crater in the garden—
"…He's not natural," I concluded.
The car stopped at a light that should have changed. seconds ago. The intersection was wrong, the timing precise.
"This world doesn't need another All Might."
The words were mine, but the sentiment belonged to something older, something that watched from behind my eyes and made calculations I didn't entirely control.
Cold. Calculated. Necessary.
"Send an agent."
The guard beside me straightened. "Sir?"
"One who enjoys breaking things." I smiled, felt the expression wrong on my face. "Eliminate the boy."
"Yes, sir."
[Midas POV]
The Tesla stopped hard enough to activate the collision avoidance system. Howard's hand shot out, caught the dashboard, and his voice came sharp: "Out! Now!"
I was already moving. Restraints were mechanical—good for blunt force, useless against precision. I dissolved the back of my seat into liquid gold, slipped through the gaps, reformed standing on the street as the door sealed behind me with Tony still inside.
Whistle.
The sound cut through traffic noise, doppler-shifting as it approached. I looked up.
A figure descended from nowhere, the air screaming around him, body wrapped in steam or dust or some atmospheric disturbance I couldn't identify.CRASH.
He landed, and the pavement cracked under the impact, spiderweb fractures spreading from his feet. Steam rolled off shoulders broad as the Tesla was long, a physique that spoke of Quirk-enhancement or genetic modification beyond baseline human.
Howard had exited the vehicle, rifle already in hand—repulsor-tech, Stark Industries standard issue, blue energy crackling in the barrel. His eyes found the tattoo on the intruder's shoulder: three heads, geometric, unmistakable.
"…Hydra."
The intruder rolled his neck, audible pops, and smiled.
Not a normal smile.
Too wide. Too excited. The expression of someone who'd been promised something and was about to collect.
"So you're the 'abnormality' the boss keeps talking about," he said, voice carrying that particular amusement that preceded cruelty. He took a step forward, and the asphalt cracked again, responding to his presence like it recognized him.
"Kid… do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to meet you?"
Howard didn't negotiate. The rifle hummed, charged, fired—
A beam of concentrated energy, blue-white and screaming.
The intruder raised his right hand, caught the beam, and his flesh changed, became something else, something that absorbed the impact, redirected it, grounded it through feet that suddenly sank six inches into the street.
"…Oh, that's cute." He examined his hand, now returning to normal flesh, and I saw the mechanism—transformation-type Quirk, elemental conversion, dirt and stone to organic simulation. "Tech toys."
"…Fuck. He's tough," Howard muttered, already calculating retreat vectors, already knowing they were insufficient.
I acted.
Golden needles formed from ambient particulates, launched toward the Hydra agent—
He didn't dodge. Didn't need to. His skin hardened again, became living stone, and the needles shattered against him like they were made of glass.
"…Is that it?"
He laughed, and the sound made something in my chest tighten—instinct, warning, the recognition that I was outclassed in ways I hadn't prepared for.
"They lied to me," he continued, almost disappointed. "Told me you're a monster. But you're just an ant."
He grinned wider, and I saw the teeth, too even, too sharp.
"Oh well… I thought this would be fun."
Then he stomped.
The street erupted.
Earth spikes, jagged and irregular, shot from every direction—too fast, too many, a forest of stone spears blooming in an instant.
"MOVE!"
I grabbed Tony, grabbed Howard, formed my board from the gold I'd absorbed that morning, and shot upward, barely clearing the eruption. A spike caught my shoe, tore it away, left me barefoot as we cleared the kill-zone.
"That guy is way too strong…" Howard's voice, strained, professional assessment failing to mask fear.
"…Yeah. He is," I agreed.
My chest hurt from the sudden acceleration.My left arm hung wrong—dislocated, maybe, or worse.
"Midas, take me down there and fight with me," Howard said, the words rushed, desperate. "We can—"
"No." My voice came out flat, certain, the decision made in the space between his words and my understanding of the gap between us. "I'll deal with him."
"Just stay here and call for help."
I released them.
Dropped.
Accelerated.
The wind became pressure became pain as I cut through atmosphere, angling toward the Hydra agent who looked up, surprised—actually surprised—by the velocity.
"I know I can't win…" The words came out through gritted teeth, my body already reacting to the damage I'd taken, the damage I was about to take. "But there's no other way."
Faster.
I pushed harder, felt the gold reserves burning, converted directly into thrust.
Then I dissolved my board, let gravity take me, added rotation, became a human-shaped meteor of precious metal.
The punch I threw contained everything—every ounce of strength, every reserve of power, every calculation of impact geometry I'd learned from Tony's physics books and my own painful experience.
BOOM.
It connected.
CRACK.
The sound of my left hand breaking, bones shattering from the force of my own strike, pain delayed by adrenaline and still arriving.
He'd raised an earth wall. I'd punched through it.
He'd absorbed the impact through his transformation. Hadn't moved.
Not even slightly.
"…That's it?" He sounded almost sad. His arms reverted to normal flesh, the stone-skin receding. "Still standing?"
I stood. Barely. My left arm hung useless, already swelling, pain beginning to arrive in waves that made my vision blur.
"Man…" He took a step toward me, and I felt the ground respond, ready to rise, ready to become whatever he needed it to be. "I like you."
"You don't break easy."
Before I could respond, another pillar shot toward me—
I saw it coming.
Couldn't move fast enough.
BOOM.
It caught my chest, lifted me, threw me.
I tasted blood.
Felt ribs crack, felt my body skid across pavement, felt the rough surface tear skin from my back.
He wasn't even trying.
The thought was clear, cold, arriving through the pain: He is stronger. Faster. More experienced. This is what that means.
I stood up anyway.
Slowly.
Painfully.
The hope was stupid, but it was all I had: He doesn't know. He doesn't know I can turn things to gold with a touch. He doesn't know the range. My only chance.
"Time to count your seconds, kid," he said, and he meant it—meant the end, meant death, meant the termination of something that had become inconvenient.
"Playtime's over."
He raised both arms, and the ground shook—not local vibration, but tectonic response, the city itself registering his power.
A shadow covered me, massive, impossible.
I looked up.
A colossal hand of earth and stone, five stories tall, fingers preparing to close.
"…Yeah." My voice was barely audible, even to myself. "That's it."
The calculation was simple: survive this, and I win. Don't, and I'm dead.
"DIE!!"
The hand came down.
BOOM.
The impact was—
I moved.
Not fast—now, at the last possible second, every muscle screaming, my chest burning, my left arm dead weight.
I appeared behind him.
He sensed it—turned—
Too late.
My right index finger touched his shoulder.
Gold spread instantly, not covering him but replacing him, transmuting his biological structure into precious metal from the point of contact outward.
His body froze.
Panic hit his face, genuine and total, the expression of someone who'd never encountered this, never imagined this possibility.
"…What… what did you—"
He couldn't finish.
I didn't hesitate.
My right fist, already traveling, met his golden temple—
CRACK.
The sound of shattering metal.
His golden body exploded into fragments, a million pieces catching light, the dome he'd constructed collapsing without his power to sustain it, sunlight pouring through where darkness had been.
I dropped to my knees.
The pain arrived, finally, everything delayed catching up: my hand, my chest, my back, my everything.
"…It's finally over…"
Breathing hurt.
Thinking hurt.
Existing hurt.
"…Yeah…"
I laughed, and it came out wrong—wet, broken, but genuine.
"…I actually took down a powerful fucking villain at the age of ten…"
Darkness took me, not from injury but from exhaustion, the cost of power pushed beyond limits, and I welcomed it.
To be continued…