"Okay, kid, you really… you really threw me for a loop there."
Tony Stark, now fully encased in the hulking Mark I armor, began to mutter to himself. It was a coping mechanism, a way for his hyper-rational brain to process the impossible things it had just witnessed.
"I mean, come on. Hell? That's… that's not scientific," he said, the words echoing inside his metal helmet. "That violates, like, twelve laws of thermodynamics right there. And beer that tastes like horse piss? That's just cruel and unusual punishment. The Geneva Conventions have to have a clause about that."
Leo watched the billionaire genius try to logic his way out of a worldview-shattering experience. It was kind of fascinating.
"And you," Tony continued, his voice a little louder, "nice trick with the… whatever that was. Sparks. Very impressive. You a student? Magician's assistant? I don't know how you got in here, but thanks for the save." He clomped a step closer. "What's your name? Get out of this alive, come find me at Stark Industries. I owe you one. I'll show you what real wine tastes like. And what real supermodels look like."
"It's Leo," he replied, a smirk playing on his lips. "And as expected of the famous Tony Stark. Even your thank-you gifts are legendary."
"Damn right they are, kid!" Tony said, picking up the crude metal faceplate of the armor. He slapped it into place, the world turning into a narrow, pixelated view. "Alright, Leo. Stand back. I've got a friend to save, and a few personal scores to settle."
His expression hardened. With a groan of protesting servos, he began to move, clomping out of the workshop where he'd spent the last three months of his life as a prisoner. The air in the main cave was damp and thick with the coppery smell of old blood. Dim, flickering lights cast long, dancing shadows on the rock walls, making the place feel like the gullet of some great stone beast.
The clank and scrape of the armor echoed unnervingly in the sudden quiet. Tony's breathing grew heavy inside the helmet. Even with a half-ton of bulletproof steel and Yinsen's genius surrounding him, his hands were slick with sweat. He thought of his friend, a gentle scholar, facing down a dozen heavily armed terrorists alone. He forced himself to move faster.
The sound of metal on rock sent sparks flying. His eyes were fixed on the tunnel ahead, his heart hammering with a sick dread. He was terrified of what he would find around the next corner.
"Ah…"
A faint sound drifted from up ahead. It was a pained groan. Tony's nerves screamed. He raised the suit's only real weapons, the twin flamethrowers mounted on its arms, and rounded the corner.
The sight that greeted him left him utterly, completely dumbfounded.
There was no battle. There were no bodies. There weren't even any terrorists. He glanced toward the mouth of the cave. The mountain of Stark Industries weapons that had been piled there, the entire reason he was in this mess, was gone. Vanished without a trace.
The only people there were Dr. Yinsen, propped against the cave wall, and a mysterious girl kneeling beside him. She was dressed in a robe similar to Leo's, but she had a pair of twitching cat ears nestled in her white hair and a long, swishing tail. A soft, green light was emanating from her hands as she held them over Yinsen's chest.
"What… is going on?" Tony managed, his voice a bewildered rasp inside the suit. He clomped over, his attention solely on his friend.
"Don't worry, Yinsen's going to be fine," Leo's confident voice said from behind him. "Ashem's a top-tier healer. Even if he was on death's door, as long as it hadn't been too long, she could bring him back."
"Healer…?" Tony muttered, watching in stunned silence as the bloody, ragged bullet holes in Yinsen's chest began to close at a visible rate. The flesh knitted itself back together, pushing the metal slugs out onto the dusty floor. The deathly pallor of his friend's skin was already receding, replaced by a healthy, rosy color.
Ashem stood up and dusted off her hands. "Alright. He's fine now." She then fixed Yinsen with a stern glare. "Your fighting style is utterly ridiculous! You're a doctor, not a soldier! What's the use of just running out there shooting and shouting? You could have been killed!" Her tone was sharp, but beneath it was a deep, genuine concern.
Yinsen looked from Tony's metal behemoth to the cat-eared girl, a deeply embarrassed expression on his face.
Then, Ashem turned her glare on Tony. "And you! Hiding in a tin can while your friend buys you time? What kind of plan is that?!" As someone who valued her companions above all else, their reckless, suicidal plan had clearly offended her on a fundamental level. "It's a good thing we got here when we did. You'd both be dead."
Tony had the decency to feel ashamed, though his face was hidden behind the mask. He looked at Yinsen, who was now shakily getting to his feet, completely healed. He thought of Leo's magical shield, of Ashem's healing light. The last pillar of his scientific reality crumbled.
"Does magic… really exist?" he asked, the question sounding small and hollow inside his helmet.
Ashem stared at him for a long moment. "It seems the Ancient One protected your world a little too well."
Tony didn't know who that was and didn't care. He looked back toward the cave entrance, noticing for the first time the chaotic mess of footprints in the dust. Dozens of them. "Where are the terrorists?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper. "Did your… magic… take care of them?"
"They were making too much noise and disturbing my healing," Ashem said casually, crossing her arms. "So I locked them all in the Mirror Dimension."
"The… Mirror Dimension?" Tony repeated, the words feeling alien and absurd.
"Think of it like a sub-dimension, a layer of reality folded on top of our own," Leo explained, his physics background finally coming in handy. "Everything's still there, but it's invisible and intangible to the real world."
"That's impossible," Tony retorted instinctively. "Sub-dimensional theory doesn't allow for stable—"
"That's why it's magic," Leo cut in with a smile. "And not science. Look, I can see your worldview is taking a beating. How about you come see for yourself? Give that new suit of yours a proper test drive. You didn't spend three months building it for nothing, right?"
As he spoke, a fiery orange portal tore open in the middle of the cave. Leo and Ashem stepped through, looking back at him with expectant grins.
"Yinsen," Tony said, turning to his friend. "It might be dangerous in there. You should stay."
"I will," Yinsen nodded, deeply aware of his own combat limitations after his near-death experience. "I'll destroy the blueprints and wipe the computers."
Tony hesitated for only a second. His fear of the unknown was strong, but his curiosity was stronger. He took a deep breath and stepped through the portal.
He found himself in a bizarre, kaleidoscopic version of the cave. The terrorists were all there, running around frantically, firing their weapons at the twisting, mirrored walls, their bullets ricocheting harmlessly through the distorted space. After a few minutes of panic, their bald-headed leader managed to rally them into a semblance of order. They gathered around their stolen weapon caches, taking a false sense of security from the familiar metal.
And it was at that exact moment that a new portal, crackling with fiery sparks, opened a short distance away from them.