New York, Long Island, a quiet and picturesque bay. Here stands a private Villa with a modern design, smooth lines, and a clever integration into the surrounding natural environment. It boasts a spacious viewing terrace, a private dock, and an exclusive helipad extending over the water. The Villa is brightly lit inside and out, with smart home systems maintaining optimal temperature and lighting, while the automated irrigation system in the garden provides a final watering for the plants at night. Everything is orderly and spotless, as if the owner had never left, merely gone out for a short while.
This is Artoria's "home" in the Marvel Universe. It was built with site selection and design advice kindly sponsored by Tony Stark, who also personally supervised part of the security system. The daily maintenance of the Villa is handled by Little Ai Classmate, who remotely dispatches one of the most reliable property teams under Stark Industries, along with smart robots.
At this moment, in the hidden airspace about five hundred meters above the bay, the massive Hyperion hangs silently, like an elegant and quiet ghost. The optical camouflage and energy-absorbing coating on the warship's surface perfectly blend it into the night sky; not even the keenest birds or the most advanced civilian radar can detect its presence. Only the extremely subtle, almost imperceptible, and abnormally calm ripples on the surface of the bay below the warship suggest that something above is affecting the airflow.
On the bridge, Artoria stands before the main observation window, gazing softly down at the familiar, warmly lit Villa below. After being away from home for months—by Marvel Universe time—and having experienced the tempestuous waves, life-and-death struggles, and god-level gambits of the Super God Universe, seeing this peaceful, quiet "little nest" now fills her heart with an indescribable warmth and a sense of belonging.
Back. Truly back.
By her side, Minerva accompanies her quietly, her gaze also fixed on the Villa, seemingly silently sensing the significance of this place to Artoria. The starlight occasionally flowing across her body is more stable and restrained than before. The upgrade protocols and materials for the Fifth Generation God Body are in place, waiting only for an absolutely safe and energy-rich moment to initiate. At this moment, she is more like Artoria's solid anchor and harbor.
"No rush to land just yet," Artoria says softly, the corner of her mouth curling into a faint, slightly mischievous smile. "Having been away from home for so long, I really must greet the 'neighbor' first and let them know I'm safe. Especially that... most worried and most suspicious 'neighbor'."
Her gaze seems to pierce through the walls of the Villa, spanning dozens of kilometers, to the center of Manhattan, toward that towering Stark Tower, with the word "Stark" forever shining at its peak.
"Initiate the'Sky Eye' high-dimensional information perception module. Focus scan on target: Stark Tower top floor, laboratory and living area. Filter out irrelevant signals, prioritize capturing vital signs, energy fluctuations, and... the coffee machine's operating status," Artoria orders the shipboard AI.
"Command confirmed.'Sky Eye' initiated, accessing 'chronos core' for auxiliary computation... Scanning... Target locked. Vital signs confirmed: Anthony Edward 'Tony' Stark, located in the open laboratory on the east side of the top floor. Energy fluctuations: low, conventional arc reactor output stable, multiple small arc reactors in standby mode. Detected activity signal from Mark series armor maintenance platform. Coffee machine status: just finished a standard Americano brew, liquid temperature 92.7 degrees Celsius, sugar content... zero."
On the main screen of the bridge, a 3D perspective scan of the Stark Tower top-floor laboratory is quickly constructed. In the image, a figure wearing a grease-stained white T-shirt, unshaven but with sharp eyes, is holding a cup of steaming black coffee. He stands before a holographic design platform, fingers swiping and tapping rapidly, adjusting the vector nozzle design for the leg thrusters of a new set of armor. His brows are slightly furrowed, and he seems to be muttering something, likely dissatisfied with a certain parameter.
It is none other than Tony Stark. It seems he has immersed himself in another "minor improvement," spending yet another sleepless night.
The smile in Artoria's eyes deepens. She recalls the past: whenever she would forget to eat or sleep due to research or training, Tony would always use his unique blend of concern and sarcasm to either forcefully drag her to eat or... secretly add double the sugar to her nutrient solution, then laugh triumphantly when she frowned from the sweetness.
"A fair exchange," Artoria whispers, a faint glimmer flashing in her eyes. She does not contact Tony directly, nor does she manipulate any conspicuous equipment. Her mental energy is highly focused, combining the hyperion's powerful information processing capabilities with the precise control techniques for micro-energy and information flow she learned from the Angel, beginning an extremely delicate, slightly mischievous operation.
Her target is the latest model of smart coffee machine in the corner of Tony's laboratory—remotely controlled by "Friday" and capable of automatic cleaning and ingredient replenishment—as well as... a basic servo control node connected to the coffee machine's robotic arm.
For this level of smart home device, the internal control protocols and communication encryption might seem impenetrable to Tony and Friday, but before Artoria—who has experienced information warfare in the Super God Universe, has personally "logic-locked" a Third Generation God Body, and has indirectly "silenced" the great clock—the defense level is as rudimentary as an undefended beach. Moreover, she already knows the underlying code style of Stark Industries and certain logical habits of Friday like the back of her hand.
No brute-force hacking, no triggered alarms. Artoria's mental energy, like the most nimble data probe, "flows" silently along the ubiquitous internal network signals of the laboratory managed by Friday. It bypasses all active defense modules, like an administrator with the highest privileges, gently "touches" that servo node, and implants a very short, temporary instruction that will self-destruct after execution.
Instruction content: The next time liquid is replenished for this coordinate, inject an additional 3.5 grams of refined sucrose as a standard unit.
The entire process happens in milliseconds. Tony is completely unaware; having just breathed a sigh of relief over the optimization of a parameter on the design drawing, he picks up the coffee, habitually brings it to his lips, and takes a big gulp.
"Pfft—!!"
The next second, Tony's expression instantly contorts, and he violently sprays out the coffee in his mouth. Brown liquid splatters all over the floor and stains the front of his T-shirt. He coughs violently, staring in disbelief at the coffee cup in his hand, then suddenly turns his head to look at the silent smart coffee machine in the corner.
"WTF?! Friday!" Tony's voice rises in shock and the nauseating sweetness. "What is wrong with this coffee?! It's sweet enough to choke a rhino! I set it to sugar-free! Sugar-free! Did your taste sensors go on strike? Or has Stark Industries become so poor that it can't even tell the difference between sugar and caffeine?!"
"Sir, the coffee machine's self-test program is running normally. The ingredient compartment check shows normal sucrose reserves, but... the sugar dispensing record for the last brew shows an anomaly: an additional 3.5 grams of standard unit sucrose was added. The source of the dispensing instruction... cannot be traced; the instruction log was overwritten and deleted by an unknown protocol within 0.001 seconds of being written. Preliminary analysis suggests an external instruction with extremely high privileges bypassed my core firewall and directly intervened in the coffee machine's underlying servo control." Friday's calm, slightly British-accented electronic female voice replies immediately, carrying a hint of rare, programmed confusion.
"Extremely high privileges? External instruction?" Tony's rage is instantly replaced by vigilance. He tosses aside the cloyingly sweet coffee cup, his fingers swiping rapidly in the air to bring up the laboratory's complete security logs and network traffic monitoring. "Jarvis, full scan! What kind of blind hacker dares to hack into my territory just to add sugar to my coffee?! Is this some kind of new performance art or psychological warfare?!"
"Performing deep scan, Sir. No known malware or traces of intrusion found. Network traffic is normal. The residual abnormal instruction at the coffee machine's servo node has been completely wiped. The technique... is very clean, and..." Jarvis's voice, more steady and full of classical charm than Friday's, sounds, then pauses to add, "...it seems to carry a certain familiar, non-aggressive 'prank' style."
"Prank style?" Tony's brows are tightly locked, his sharp eyes scanning every corner of the laboratory, the armor summoning bracelet already glowing faintly. He is not the type to be scared by a crude joke, but this method—capable of bypassing the dual defenses of Friday and Jarvis, precisely targeting his coffee cup, and slipping away without leaving a trace after the prank... is no trivial matter.
Just then, on the laboratory ceiling, a general-purpose robotic arm—used for moving heavy equipment and usually folded and hidden—suddenly lets out a "hum," extends, activates, and deftly turns around. The multi-functional gripper at the front of the robotic arm, under the astonished gaze of Tony and the two AIs, does not grasp any tools or parts, but instead... slowly and clearly, bends and arranges itself into a gesture that all Earthlings recognize, representing "OK"!
The robotic arm even shakes up and down twice, as if saying: "That's right, I did it. What are you going to do about it?"
Tony: "..."
Friday: "..."
Jarvis: "..."
A deathly silence lasts for about three seconds.
"Holy shit!" Tony stepped back abruptly, almost bumping into the workbench behind him. His eyes were wide, staring fixedly at the robotic arm that was making an "OK" gesture and still swaying slightly.
The familiar style... the precise control... the silent provocation... and that damn essence of a prank that immediately made him think of a certain "missing person"!
"Artoria?!" Tony practically roared, his voice filled with disbelief, ecstasy, and a hint of annoyance at being teased. "Is it you?! You're back?! Where are you?! Get your ass out here right now! Do you know how these past few months—ugh! Jarvis! Lock onto the signal source of this robotic arm immediately! Highest priority!"
"Attempting to lock on... The signal is weak and highly encrypted; the source appears... not to be within Earth's synchronous orbit. Expanding search range..." Jarvis's voice carried a hint of gravity.
However, before Jarvis could finish, the robotic arm making the "OK" gesture moved again. It slowly adjusted its angle and used its front gripper to "tap" a few times in the air in an adjacent empty holographic projection area.
A line of clear, concise text, accompanied by a precise geographic coordinate located somewhere off the coast of New York Harbor, appeared before Tony:
"Hi, Tony. Long time no see. Want to visit my 'new toy'? The coordinates are below. Come alone. — Ling. PS: How was the coffee? ^_^"
Tony looked at the text, especially the familiar, teasing emoticon at the end. The expression on his face was spectacular, shifting from shock and anger to ecstasy, then to amusement, and finally settling into a mix of immense curiosity and impatient excitement.
"A new toy? Come alone?" Tony sneered, but his eyes were startlingly bright. "Going through all this trouble just to invite me to see a 'toy'? And alone? Jarvis, keep monitoring this place. Report any anomalies immediately. I want to see where you've been messing around these past few months and what kind of terrifying thing you've brought back!"
As he spoke, he was already walking rapidly toward the armor platform in the center of the lab. Nanoparticles, like flowing silver liquid, quickly poured out from the reactor on his chest and his special bracelets, covering his entire body. In an instant, the gold and red Mark 50 armor, with its sleeker and sharper lines, was fully equipped.
"Sir, the target coordinate is located above international waters, but my remote scans show that the coordinate point is empty, with only abnormal spatial curvature readings." Jarvis reported.
"Empty? That's perfect!" Tony's voice came through the armor's faceplate, filled with irrepressible excitement. "You know how she operates, right? The more it looks 'empty,' the bigger the surprise hidden beneath might be! Let's go!"
The gold and red armor's foot and palm thrusters erupted with dazzling plasma flames, shattering the lab's reinforced glass window. Like a retrograde meteor, it streaked across the night sky of New York, speeding toward the coordinates provided by Artoria.
Above the specified coordinates off the coast of New York Harbor.
Tony hovered about a hundred meters above the sea surface with the armor's scanning systems fully active, but the feedback was the same as what Jarvis had said—apart from the sea breeze, waves, the occasional passing seabird, and the distant city lights, there was nothing here. The spatial curvature readings did show an extremely subtle anomaly, but it was so weak it was almost negligible, like a side effect of some advanced cloaking technology.
"Artoria! I'm here! Where's your 'toy'? You didn't make me run out here in the middle of the night just to look at the ocean, right?" Tony called out through the armor's public communication channel, his tone deliberately impatient.
No sooner had he finished speaking than the space less than fifty meters in front of him rippled like water. A minimalist, oval-shaped "portal"—about five meters high and three meters wide, with pale silver light shimmering along its edges—silently unfolded before him. The interior of the portal was not pitch black, but a bright, metallic-lustered short-range corridor. At the end of the corridor, the interior of a spacious, high-tech cabin was vaguely visible.
"Sir, high-intensity, unparseable spatial technology detected. The portal structure is stable, and the energy signature... has never been seen before. Caution is advised." Jarvis warned immediately.
"Caution? I'm already here!" Tony said, though all of his armor's weapon systems were already in a semi-activated state, and the energy shields were raised to the highest level. He took a deep breath and maneuvered the Mark 50, flying slowly toward the open portal.
The moment he passed through the portal, there was an extremely slight sensation, as if passing through a cool film of water, and then the scene before him suddenly opened up.
He found himself in an extremely spacious, impressively high-ceilinged enclosed space. The floor was made of matte, silver-gray metal, while the walls and ceiling were smooth as mirrors, embedded with countless fine, soft white light strips that illuminated the entire space like daylight without being glaring at all. The air was fresh, carrying a faint, special scent belonging to a precision machinery environment—a mix of something like ozone and high-grade lubricant.
This place did not resemble the interior of any Earth spacecraft, S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, or even Asgardian flying vessel he had ever seen. The style was simpler, tougher, and more efficient, filled with a cold, almost purely rational industrial aesthetic, yet at the same time, it revealed an indescribable advancement and... a sense of "order" that transcended the era.
What caught Tony's eye the most were the few distinct flight vehicles parked quietly in the central area of this huge cabin. There was the improved version of Artoria's "shadow shuttle" that he had seen before, with sleeker lines and many unfamiliar accessory ports on the surface; there were several silver-gray aircraft with aggressive designs that were clearly unmanned fighter jets; and there were even two combat robots over four meters tall, resembling humanoid mechs but with unusually precise structures, currently in standby mode. Their crimson electronic eyes lit up simultaneously when Tony entered, scanned him, and quickly extinguished, as if it were just a routine security check.
"Whoa..." Tony exclaimed subconsciously, his faceplate automatically rising to reveal a face filled with wonder and curiosity. The technical level displayed in this "foyer" alone had already far exceeded his expectations. The design philosophy, material technology, and energy systems of those vehicles and robots all revealed a path that was completely different from the technology tree he was familiar with, yet equally sophisticated.
"Like it?" A familiar, clear, smiling voice sounded from behind Tony. Tony spun around abruptly.
He saw a door slide open silently on one side of the hangar, and two figures walked out side by side. On the left was Minerva. She was still wearing those form-fitting casual clothes, her face so exquisitely beautiful it didn't seem human. The gentle starlight flowing beneath her skin made her look as if she came with her own soft-light filter. Her long black hair hung down like a waterfall, and her eyes were gentle and calm. Tony had a deep impression of her, knowing she was the mysterious and powerful partner beside Artoria. And on the right...
When Tony's gaze landed on the black-haired girl wearing silver-gray work clothes, a neat ponytail, a simple long sword at her waist, and a clean, warm smile on her face, his pupils constricted slightly. Then, an indescribable, complex emotion, a mixture of relief, joy, and "just as I thought," welled up in his heart.
It was Artoria. It was really her. She didn't look much different from when she left, or perhaps... her temperament was calmer and her eyes were deeper and brighter, as if she had undergone a transformative baptism. But that familiar essence, the one that belonged to "Artoria," remained unchanged.
"You..." Tony opened his mouth, suddenly not knowing what to say. Should he scold her for disappearing for so long? Ask where she went? Or should he first ask about this "toy" that clearly didn't belong to Earth and was ridiculously huge?
Artoria seemed to see through his conflict, her smile widening. She stepped forward and opened her arms. "Tony, I'm back."
No extra explanations, no complicated opening lines. Just a simple hug and the words, "I'm back."
Tony's body stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. He reached out his arms and hugged Artoria back tightly, yet carefully. Then he quickly let go, resuming his signature, slightly cynical expression, and looked Artoria up and down.
"Back, huh? Yeah, I can see that. And you brought back such a... big guy." Tony gestured to the surrounding hangar and then to Artoria, his tone exaggerated. "Missing for months, no word, and the first thing you do when you get back is hack my coffee machine, and then 'invite' me over in this... well, pretty cool way. Tell me, kid, which alien civilization did you run off to for advanced training these past few months? Or are you actually a hidden alien princess, and you're now back home to inherit the throne, while showing off by flying a mothership back?"
Artoria was amused by his words and shook her head. "It's a long story. But this isn't the place to talk. Let's go, I'll take you to the bridge. The real 'toy' is... much bigger than this landing pod."
She made a "please" gesture, turned, and led Minerva toward the door they had just entered through.
Tony raised an eyebrow and followed without hesitation, the footsteps of the Mark 50 armor echoing in the empty hangar. The curiosity and excitement in his heart had completely overwhelmed all other emotions. He had a premonition that tonight's "tour" would definitely be one of the most unforgettable experiences of his life.
This ship, this girl, and that distinctly different temperament of hers... The Marvel Universe was probably about to face a new, unknown storm.
And Tony Stark, Iron Man, was the least afraid of the unknown, and of storms.
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