The sight before him made Tony Stark's usually sarcastic mouth forget how to close for the first time in his life.
In the cramped cave prison of the Ten Rings, the air had originally been thick with the smell of engine oil, sweat, and despair. But now, a sharp, salty breath of sea wind seemed to appear out of nowhere, sweeping the stench clean away.
The moment Takao took the Arc Reactor that was glowing with a faint blue light and quietly spoke the word "Create," countless deep-blue motes of light flowed out of the reactor like shattered starlight, then rushed together in midair.
The radiance shaped itself into the outline of a tall, athletic woman. She had long, silver-white hair like a waterfall from the deep sea, the ends tinged with a faint crimson. A black-and-red combat outfit traced powerful, clean lines along her body, and the white hem trailing from her shoulders drifted as if moved by a wind that wasn't there. Most eye-catching of all were the massive two-handed greatsword in her grip—almost as tall as she was—and those calm, ancient-lake-red eyes that quietly melted the moment they fell upon Takao.
"Dear God… or whichever passing deity happens to be on duty," Tony muttered. The wrench ring slipped from his fingers and hit the ground with a crisp clang. "Tell me, am I hallucinating from a lack of oxygen? Or did science keel over and die while I wasn't looking?"
The woman who had appeared out of thin air—Skadi—completely ignored the billionaire beside her whose worldview was currently in free fall. Her gaze locked firmly onto the somewhat flustered Takao. Her cool face revealed little, but the way her steps unconsciously quickened betrayed her urgency.
She stopped in front of Takao without a word, simply opened her arms, and with a mix of irresistible force and slightly clumsy tenderness pulled him into a tight, tight embrace. Takao's face was immediately buried against the cool-scented hollow of her shoulder; he could feel terrifying strength coiled beneath the fabric against his cheek.
"Wait… Skadi?" Takao grunted and struggled, trying to explain the situation, but the chill against his face made his words stall—Skadi was rubbing her pale cheek gently against his hair, like a large hound that had finally found its long-lost master.
"I finally found you, Takao."
Her voice was cold, like wind sweeping across a frozen plain, yet the attachment and relief packed inside it almost overflowed, making Takao's heart give a sudden, hard thump.
"Uh, Titi? Think you could loosen up a bit first? I'm… kind of running out of air here." Takao patted her back, trying to carve out a bit of space for himself from that suffocating embrace. He tried to struggle, but Skadi's seemingly slender arms were like cast steel—completely immovable.
"No."
Her answer was crisp and firm. Her arms tightened instead, as if letting go even slightly would cause the man in her arms to dissolve into mist and vanish. "You disappeared. I was very lonely."
Tony finally snapped out of his petrified state. He blinked at Skadi—unshaken even under Takao's squirming—and then at Takao's helpless, slightly embarrassed expression. Suddenly he let out a sharp whistle, a broad, gleeful grin spreading across his face.
"Wow. Looks like our great and mighty sorcerer here has summoned himself a… very 'enthusiastic' guardian angel." Tony stooped to retrieve his wrench ring and said teasingly, "Need me to give you, say, five minutes alone, Takao? There's not much in the way of privacy in this cave, but I can pretend I don't hear a thing."
Takao shot Tony an exasperated glare and very much wanted to say: Five minutes wouldn't even begin to cover it.
But when he tried to move his arms, he realized that he couldn't even pry loose a single finger of this orca lady, much less prove anything about his own strength. In the end he gave up resisting, letting Skadi hold him as he patted her arm and said quietly, "All right, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. But our current situation… is a bit of a mess."
Only then did Skadi ease her grip slightly, though she still didn't let go completely. Her crimson eyes swept across the gloomy cave, the scattered weapon parts on the ground, and finally landed on Tony. There was a brief, assessing glint in her gaze before it returned to Takao. She nodded.
"Mm. Whatever trouble there is, I'll clear it away for you with my sword."
Her words were calm, but the resolve in them left no room for doubt. The greatsword in her hand sat light as a feather, yet Takao had no trouble imagining it cleaving straight through everything in front of them—up to and including those heavy iron doors the Ten Rings prided themselves on.
Tony watched the scene, rubbing the stubble on his chin. His expression shifted from shock, to amusement, then gradually to something more thoughtful. He glanced at the Arc Reactor, which had completely vanished, then back at Takao.
"All right, I admit it. Magic—or some kind of science we really, really don't understand—does exist." He shrugged. "So then, my esteemed 'sorcerer' friend, and Miss Skadi, the woman of many, many muscles… shouldn't we talk about how to use this 'not-very-scientific' trick of yours to get out of this hellhole?"
Takao felt the cool, reassuring presence at his side and the absolute loyalty that Skadi radiated. For the first time since his abduction, he felt a solid, unwavering confidence that they could escape this desperate situation.
"Of course." Takao smiled, looking toward the tightly shut iron door. "It's about time our 'friends' out there saw that there's more to life than missiles."
Takao's proposal was simple and brutish—but with Skadi's inhuman strength, it was also brutally reasonable. He pointed at the astonishingly thick prison door, cast from rough steel. It was the biggest barrier separating them from freedom, and the Ten Rings' proudest supposedly impregnable safeguard.
"Skadi, see that door?" Takao pointed at the iron gate. "Tear it down and use it as your shield. Then you only need to do one thing—charge straight ahead. Anything in your way, whether it's people or walls, either smash it aside with the door or break through it."
He paused, then added, "Don't worry about tactics. Don't worry about how you look. Just trust your strength and the direction we call out for you."
Skadi's red eyes followed his finger to the massive door. She stared at it for a brief moment, then nodded without hesitation. To her, Takao's words were absolute commands. There was no need to question—only to carry them out.
"Okay."
Her reply was cool and short. She reluctantly loosened her arms from around Takao, still carrying a faint hint of unwillingness, and took a few steps toward the iron door.
Tony opened his mouth, looking as if he were about to analyze, from an engineering perspective, the difficulty of forcibly ripping out a door mounted in solid rock, along with all the possible consequences of doing so—like, say, collapsing the cave on their heads. But when he met Skadi's calm, unruffled eyes, he swallowed the words again.
Fine. Trying to explain physics to something that had just been summoned out of nowhere and clearly violated most laws of it… probably wasn't very physical to begin with.
Skadi didn't even bother with a dramatic wind-up. She simply reached out her seemingly pale, delicate hand and drove her fingers into the narrow gap where the iron door's hinges met the stone wall, as if they were steel spikes.
A shrill screech of tortured metal split the air, setting everyone's teeth on edge.
Skadi frowned slightly, as if annoyed by the noise. Then she gave her arm a light, almost casual tug—
"Creeeak—BOOM!"
The entire heavy iron door, together with a chunk of the frame sunk into the rock, was torn free as if it were a sheet of paper. Stone and metal fragments rained to the ground as a ragged opening yawned before them, leading toward freedom—or, more accurately, straight into the enemy's lair.
(End of Chapter)
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