Hunter of Marvel - Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Pocket Dimension

The heavy, reinforced steel door swung open without a sound, its rusted hinges yielding entirely to the overwhelming, silent force of Veer Pratap Singh’s hands.

Inside the cavernous, sweltering workshop, the harsh glare of halogen work lights cut through the thick haze of soldering smoke and metallic dust. Tables were strewn with disorganized heaps of dismantled missile casings, palladium wire, and crude, heavy iron plating. In the center of the room, standing beside a massive anvil, Ho Yinsen paused, a pair of heavy metal tongs gripped tightly in his hands.

Sitting at the primary workbench, wearing a sweat-stained tank top, was Tony Stark. He held a heavy ball-peen hammer in mid-air, frozen at the apex of his swing. The glowing, circular arc reactor embedded in the center of his chest cast a pale, icy blue light across the jagged metal he had been working on—the crude, unmistakable chest plate of the Mark I armor.

Both men stared at the doorway in absolute, paralyzed silence.

Veer stood on the threshold. He didn’t carry an AK-47. He wasn’t dressed in the dusty, tactical desert garb of the Ten Rings insurgents. He wore dark cargo pants, a black t-shirt, and heavy combat boots. He was a teenager, albeit one built like a seasoned heavyweight fighter, his hands and forearms coated in a horrifying layer of drying, dark crimson blood.

Tony blinked, his brilliant mind momentarily stalling as it tried to categorize the anomaly standing in their workshop.

“Okay,” Tony said, slowly lowering the hammer, his voice cracking slightly from the dry, dusty air. He looked over at Yinsen, then back at Veer. “Did the Terrorists start a junior intern program? Because if they did, the uniform is terrible, and the hygiene standards are appalling.”

Yinsen didn’t laugh. He gripped the tongs tighter, stepping slightly in front of the workbench. “Who are you?” he asked cautiously, his eyes darting to the blood on Veer’s hands. “You are not one of them.”

Veer stepped fully into the room, letting the heavy steel door click shut behind him. The air in the workshop was suffocatingly hot, but his aura kept his core temperature perfectly regulated. He looked past Yinsen and locked eyes with the billionaire.

“Mr. Stark,” Veer said, his voice flat but carrying a tone of absolute, genuine respect. “It is an honor. I am a very big fan of your work.”

It was the absolute truth. Even in his previous life, before the world had merged into this terrifying reality of gods and monsters, Tony Stark had been a legendary figure in his mind. The genius, the swagger, the eventual sacrifice—Stark was the cornerstone of the universe.

Tony stared at him, completely thrown off balance. “You speak English,” Tony muttered, dragging a grease-stained rag across his forehead. “Great. Fantastic. You’re the second guy in this entire godforsaken cave system who speaks English. So, are you here for an autograph, or are you here to shoot me?”

“I am here to rescue you,” Veer replied simply.

This statement made the matter infinitely more confusing. Tony looked Veer up and down, taking in the blood, the sheer physical mass of the boy, and the absolute lack of visible weaponry.

“A rescue,” Tony repeated, the corners of his mouth twitching into his signature, sarcastic smirk. He tossed the rag onto the workbench. “Right. The teenager in the t-shirt is going to carry us out of a terrorist stronghold. Let me guess, the extraction team is waiting outside? You brought Delta Force? A couple of Black Hawks hovering over the valley? Or are we strapping on jetpacks and flying out of here?”

“We are walking out,” Veer said, his tone remaining perfectly even.

“Walking,” Tony deadpanned. “Through an army of heavily armed sociopaths. Yinsen, tell him what a terrible idea that is.”

Veer didn’t argue. His enhanced Perception, stretching out through the labyrinth of the cave system, suddenly picked up a shift in the ambient noise. The heavy, rhythmic thud of combat boots was approaching down the primary corridor.

They would have discover the dead guards outside the door.

“We don’t have time for this,” Veer stated, his voice dropping into a sharp, commanding register.

He stepped forward, kneeling onto the dirt floor of the workshop. He pressed his right palm flat against the packed earth. He channeled his aura, pushing a fraction of his aura pool into the ground.

‘Hide and Seek.’

A brilliant, ethereal blue light exploded from beneath his hand. Intricate, geometric script flared to life, burning into the dust. Yinsen gasped, taking a stumbling step backward. Tony froze, his sarcastic smirk vanishing instantly.

Veer lifted his hand. The air folded inward, tearing the fabric of reality apart. A one-by-one meter square of absolute, light-absorbing blackness materialized, hovering just above the ground. It defied every law of physics Tony Stark had ever studied.

“Just enter into the portal,” Veer commanded, pointing to the void.

Tony Stark’s mouth fell slightly open. His dark eyes darted from the glowing blue script that had just faded, to the impossible black square, and then to Veer. His mind, capable of processing complex quantum mechanics and repulsor technology, violently rejected what it was seeing.

“What kind of science is this?” Tony demanded, taking a step toward the portal, his curiosity momentarily overpowering his survival instinct. “Spatial manipulation? A localized Einstein-Rosen bridge? How are you sustaining the wormhole without a massive particle accelerator?”

“It is magic, Mr. Stark. Please step inside.”

“Magic,” Tony scoffed, shaking his head rapidly, his hands moving in erratic, dismissive gestures. “No. Stop. I don’t believe in magic. Magic doesn’t exist. Magic is just a kind of science that we haven’t started to understand yet. It’s biological or environmental. Some animals can see in the dark, but humans can’t. Does that mean the animal is magical? No. That’s bio-related science. You are manipulating space with an undiscovered energy field. What’s the power source?”

Outside the heavy steel door, Veer heard a sudden, sharp shout in Arabic.

‘The guards have been found.’

The heavy ‘clack’ of assault rifles being racked echoed through the thick metal door. They were out of time.

“Fascinating,” Veer said coldly.

He moved.

He didn’t use ‘Silent Gait’, but his base Dexterity of 39 allowed him to cross the room in a literal blur. Before Tony’s brain could even register the movement, Veer was in front of him. Veer’s massive hand clamped down on the collar of Tony’s tank top. With his other hand, he seized the heavy fabric of Yinsen’s jacket.

“Hey, wait—!” Tony yelled.

Veer didn’t wait. Utilizing a fraction of his monstrous Strength, he effortlessly hoisted both grown men off their feet as if they were ragdolls, pivoted on his heel, and violently threw them headfirst into the pitch-black portal.

They vanished into the void with a muffled shout.

Immediately, the heavy iron deadbolts on the workshop door began to rattle as the terrorists outside slammed their bodies against the metal.

Veer stepped into the portal. The frictionless transition washed over him, and he mentally commanded the tear in reality to close.

A split second later, the steel door of the workshop was kicked open.

Raza, the ruthless leader of the Ten Rings cell, stormed into the room, his assault rifle raised to his shoulder. A dozen heavily armed insurgents flooded in behind him, sweeping the corners, their weapons trained on the shadows.

Raza stopped in the center of the room, his dark eyes scanning the empty workshop. The halogen lights swung slightly overhead. The crude pieces of the Mark I armor still sat on the tables. The soldering iron was still smoking. But the billionaire and the surgeon were gone.

Raza stared at the empty space where Tony Stark had been sitting moments ago. There were no secret tunnels. There were no secondary exits.

“Find him!” Raza roared, his voice echoing violently off the stone walls, his face contorted in absolute rage. “Tear this mountain apart! I need him alive!”

—

On the other side of the spatial tear, Tony Stark hit the smooth, polished floor with a heavy thud, sliding several feet across the pristine white surface. Yinsen landed beside him, groaning as the wind was knocked out of his lungs.

Tony scrambled to his hands and knees, his heart hammering against his ribs, the arc reactor in his chest pulsing rapidly. He looked around wildly, expecting to be in another cave, or perhaps on the back of a transport truck.

Instead, he was in a perfectly square, 10×10 meter room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were constructed of a seamless, featureless white material. The air was crisp, cool, and clean, completely devoid of the suffocating dust of the Afghan desert. The room was bathed in a clear, natural light, though there were no fixtures, windows, or bulbs visible anywhere.

“What…” Tony breathed, pushing himself up to a standing position. He spun in a slow circle. “What kind of magic is this?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in magic, Stark,” a calm voice said.

Tony whirled around. Veer stepped seamlessly out of a patch of empty air, the black square of the portal snapping shut and vanishing into nothingness behind him.

Tony stared at the teenager, his brilliant mind racing at a million miles an hour. He walked over to the nearest white wall, placing his hands flat against the strange material. It was cool to the touch, impenetrable, and completely seamless.

“Okay,” Tony said, turning back to Veer, his eyes wide with a frantic, desperate mercantile energy. “How much? How much does this technology cost? Because whatever it is, whatever R&D firm you stole this from, I’ll buy it. Name your price. Ten million? A hundred million? I will purchase the patent right now.”

Veer couldn’t help it. A small, genuine smile touched the corners of his mouth.

“Classic Tony,” Veer said, shaking his head slowly. “But it is not for sale. It is magic, Mr. Stark. It is tied to my soul. I literally cannot sell it to you.”

Tony opened his mouth to argue, fully prepared to debate the semantics of soul-binding versus biometric energy locks, when a soft, terrified sound drew his attention.

Tony turned his head.

Huddled in the far corner of the pristine white room, wrapped tightly in heavy wool blankets, were over two dozen women. They were staring at Tony and Yinsen with wide, fearful eyes, clutching MRE packets and water bottles to their chests.

Tony’s rapid-fire speech died in his throat. He looked at the women, taking in their battered, starved condition. He recognized the traumatic hollows in their cheeks. He had spent 2 months as a prisoner of the Ten Rings; he knew exactly the kind of hell these women had been subjected to.

He looked back at Veer, the sarcasm completely bleeding out of his expression.

“Mr. Stark,” Veer said, his voice lowering into a serious, somber register. He pointed a blood-stained finger toward the corner. “They are survivors from the terrorist camp. I pulled them out. I do not have the infrastructure to take care of them. You have to arrange something for them.”

Tony didn’t hesitate. The playboy billionaire persona vanished, replaced entirely by the man who would eventually build the Avengers.

“It’s not a problem,” Tony said firmly, his dark eyes locked on Veer. “I have the Stark Relief Foundation. I have fixers, doctors, and lawyers on retainer in every major timezone. I will make sure every single one of them gets medical care, asylum, and whatever financial support they need to rebuild their lives. I promise you that.”

Veer nodded. It was exactly what he expected from Stark.

“But,” Tony added, gesturing around the sterile room, “I can’t exactly make a phone call from inside this… quantum cube. I need a satellite phone. I need a secure line. We need to get back to the US before I can mobilize my people.”

“That,” Veer said, stepping toward the center of the room, “is also not a problem.”

Veer knelt on the pristine white floor. He placed his right palm flat against the surface. He channeled another 100 AP from his massive reserves. The brilliant blue script flared to life once more.

“Come out,” Veer said, standing up as the black square of the portal opened in the air. “We have reached the US.”

Tony stared at the portal, his eyebrows knitting together in deep confusion. “What do you mean? We just stepped into this room ten seconds ago from a cave in the Middle East. You didn’t pilot anything. We didn’t move.”

“Just step through,” Veer instructed calmly.

Yinsen, who had remained entirely silent and awestruck the entire time, stepped forward. He looked at Tony, offered a small, disbelieving shrug, and walked into the void.

Tony took a deep breath, the arc reactor glowing brightly through his shirt, and followed the surgeon into the black square.

The transition was instant.

Tony stepped out of the portal, and the environment hit him like a physical blow.

Gone was the stale, sweltering heat of the Afghan cave. Gone was the sterile, quiet air of the white room. He was instantly assaulted by a freezing, howling wind. The sound of distant traffic, honking horns, and the low, mechanical hum of a massive metropolis filled his ears.

Tony stumbled forward, his hands gripping a heavy, cold iron railing to steady himself.

He looked up.

He was standing on a narrow, grated observation deck. Towering directly above him, cast in oxidized green copper and illuminated by massive floodlights, were the spikes of a colossal crown.

Tony spun around, his breath misting violently in the freezing night air.

Stretching out before him, a sprawling, glittering ocean of skyscrapers and city lights, was New York City. The Hudson River churned darkly below them, reflecting the neon glow of Manhattan.

They were standing at the very top of the Statue of Liberty.

“Oh my god,” Yinsen breathed, gripping the railing next to Tony, his eyes wide as he stared at the American skyline.

Tony Stark was completely, utterly shocked. His mouth hung open. The cold wind whipped his hair around his face, but he didn’t feel the chill. His mind was systematically breaking down and rebuilding its entire foundation of physics, quantum mechanics, and spatial relativity.

A space door. A pocket dimension. Instantaneous, trans-global teleportation.

It defied the speed of light. It defied mass displacement. It was impossible.

Veer stepped out of the portal behind them. The black square snapped shut, leaving them alone on the isolated observation deck, high above the sleeping city.

“How?” Tony demanded, turning to Veer, his voice barely audible over the roaring wind. He was shivering now, the adrenaline wearing off, but his eyes were burning with an insatiable need to understand. “How did we get from Kunar Province to the Statue of Liberty in less than two minutes? Are you manipulating localized wormholes? Is the dimension a conduit? How are you targeting the exit coordinates without a supercomputer?”

Veer leaned against the cold iron railing, looking out over the city that he had just ensured would survive the Chitauri invasion.

“This is just one ability,” Veer explained, his voice calm, cutting through the wind with absolute clarity. “I can open a door into that pocket dimension from anywhere in the world. Think of the dimension as a secure hallway. But a hallway has many doors.”

Tony stared at him, hanging onto every word.

“Each door,” Veer continued, “can only open to a location where I have physically stood and placed a mark before. I marked a location in Afghanistan. I marked this location in New York. The dimension bridges them. Distance is irrelevant.”

Tony Stark looked back out at the glittering skyline of Manhattan, his genius mind finally accepting the terrifying, magnificent reality of the boy standing beside him.