Inside the Mirror Dimension, the terrorists stared in panicked disbelief at the fiery portal. On the other side was the familiar, dusty cave of their own base—an escape route. They were about to make a desperate charge for it when the figures on the other side came into view, and they froze.
First was the woman with the cat ears. The demon who had trapped them in this hellscape.
Then came a man in a black robe, followed by a hulking, clanking monster of scrap metal. Listening to the voice booming from inside the suit, they realized with dawning horror who it was. Tony Stark.
Tony, for his part, stepped through the portal and gawked. He thought about the man Leo had just casually banished to the North Pole and couldn't help but let out an impressed, slightly manic laugh.
"Hey, kid, that portal trick of yours is really something!" All of his earlier tension had evaporated, replaced by the insatiable curiosity of a genius who had just discovered a new, impossible toy. "Seriously, how do you do it? Is it wormhole generation? Some kind of localized space-time distortion? What's the power source?"
Leo just rolled his eyes, sighing to himself. So this is what it's like, he thought. No wonder he ends up taking a liking to Spider-Man. They're both just relentless chatterboxes.
"Tony—Stark—"
The guttural roar of the terrorist leader cut through Tony's excited rambling. He didn't understand what was happening, but he knew one thing for certain: all of this chaos, this impossible nightmare, was somehow Stark's fault. The man was supposed to build him missiles, and instead, he'd built a monster and summoned demons. The rage was incandescent.
The feeling was mutual.
Tony looked at the men who had imprisoned him, who had forced him to watch his friend die, and felt a cold, burning fury rise in his chest. These were the men using the weapons he'd created for peace to spread nothing but terror and death.
Enemies meeting face to face. Their eyes red with hate.
The terrorist leader snatched a rocket launcher from one of his men and, without a moment's hesitation, fired.
With a whoosh of fire, the rocket screamed through the distorted air, on a direct path to incinerate them. But in its path, another fiery orange portal snapped open. The rocket flew in, vanished, and a second portal opened directly above the stunned group of terrorists.
BOOM!
The explosion sent men and crates flying, plunging the already panicked group back into chaos.
"Whoa, cool!" Tony yelled, his voice giddy inside the helmet. He knew the Mark I could barely handle sustained rifle fire; a direct hit from an RPG would have turned it, and him, into shrapnel. "Okay, that ability is seriously convenient. You can redirect attacks, go anywhere you want… Hey, speaking of which, can you pop us over to a burger joint when we're done here? I haven't had a decent cheeseburger in three months. I'm dying."
Ashem tilted her head, giving Tony an appraising look. "I have to say, your mindset is impressive. You're definitely a better fighter than Dr. Yinsen, at least."
"Of course! I'm a genius," Tony said, his voice dripping with bravado.
"Alright, genius uncle," Leo cut in. "Let's clean up this mess before we think about burgers."
With that, Leo waved his arm, and the very fabric of the Mirror Dimension twisted to his will. The ground beneath the terrorists' feet warped and folded. They would run forward only to find themselves moving backward. They scrambled up piles of crates only to end up lower than where they started. One man sprinted for cover only to have the floor flip a full ninety degrees, sending him tumbling right back to his starting point. It was a chaotic, disorienting nightmare.
Then, Ashem made her move.
A circle of pure, inky shadow spread out from around her feet. From it, ethereal tendrils of black and violet energy reached out, as if pulling something from the abyss. Runes of a deep, purplish-red blazed to life on the ground, and from them, a figure of solid darkness began to rise.
"Fray—" Ashem whispered.
The figure solidified. It was a woman in pitch-black, jagged armor, holding a greatsword that seemed to drink the light from the air. Her face was an identical copy of Ashem's, but where Ashem's features were soft, hers were sharp, severe, and utterly humorless.
She surveyed the scrambling, terrified men. She didn't speak. Another rocket came flying toward her. Fray simply raised one hand, and a translucent shield of dark, swirling energy appeared, swallowing the explosion without a sound.
She then hefted her greatsword and began to walk toward the terrorists. But just before she did, she shot a quick, annoyed glance back at Ashem. The look was unmistakable: You really needed me for this?
Ashem pinched the bridge of her nose, a little embarrassed. "I'm just, uh, practicing the skill," she explained to Leo with a weak laugh.
"Why are you explaining it to me?" Leo shrugged, then gripped the ring of fiery light that still hovered behind him. With a thought, the portal collapsed, the energy flowing into his hand and solidifying into a crackling whip of pure, sun-hot plasma. "Alright," he said with a grin. "My turn to try out some new tricks."
"Hey, wait!" Tony yelled, controlling his suit to clomp after them. "Leave the leader for me! He and I have some things to settle, personally!"
The battle, if it could be called that, was over quickly.
When Leo finally stomped his foot and dispelled the Mirror Dimension, the bizarre scenery fading back into the mundane reality of the cave, he and Ashem were completely unharmed. Tony, however, was in a sullen mood. The Mark I was heavily damaged, its armor dented and smoking, one of its arms hanging limp. Whether his mood was due to the state of his suit or something the terrorist leader had told him in their final confrontation, he didn't say.
"Well, that was… an experience," Li Guang said, satisfied. "A bit one-sided, though."
"Sigh… what happened these last three months is going to stay with me for the rest of my life," Tony said as Dr. Yinsen helped him unbolt the battered armor. "And I swear, I am never riding in a jeep again."
"Because of what happened when you were captured?" Leo asked.
"Because it doesn't suit my image," Tony said haughtily. "Speaking of which, you two want to come back to New York with me? Yinsen's already agreed."
Leo shook his head. "Can't. I'm still a wanted man in your country, remember?"
Tony's eyebrows shot up. "Really? What did you do?"
"I said the wrong thing," Leo said with a helpless expression. Another portal, crackling with orange sparks, opened beside them. Through it, they could see the familiar sign of a fast-food joint. "That's the burger place a few blocks from your mansion," Leo said. "Go on."
"Excellent! I'm getting ten!" Tony's eyes lit up. He was about to go, but turned back. "You sure you're not coming? I can help you with your… situation."
"No need," Leo said, shaking his head. "We've still got a world to save."
"Alright," Tony said with a nod. "But if you need anything, anything at all, you know who to call." With a final wave, he and Yinsen stepped through. The portal slowly closed.
In the distance, the faint, rhythmic thump-thump-thump of helicopter blades began to grow louder. After a final glance in the direction of the sound, Leo and Ashem opened a new portal and stepped back into the quiet halls of Kamar-Taj.
They were not expecting to see the Crystal Exarch waiting for them.