Chapter 102: MERLINBREAKER
The glass doors to Tony Stark's private underground R&D lab slid open.
Pepper Potts walked out, rubbing her temples. She looked exhausted. She passed Ethan in the hallway and stopped, pointing a sharp finger at him.
"He has been awake for thirty-six hours," Pepper said flatly. "He is drinking motor-oil-thick coffee, muttering about spatial compression, and arguing with the ceiling. Whatever he asks you for in there, do not encourage him."
"I'll keep that in mind," Ethan said.
Pepper narrowed her eyes, completely unconvinced, and walked to the elevator.
Ethan stepped into the lab. The room was a disaster zone of half-built circuit boards, empty mugs, and holographic projections.
Tony was standing in the center of the room, surrounded by three massive blue screens. The left screen displayed the jagged, glowing green scan of the Vulture wing core. The right screen showed the slagged schematics of Ivan Vanko's Whiplash harness. The center screen held the complex, theoretical math for the Hoi-Poi capsule.
Tony didn't look up when Ethan walked in. He just swiped the Vanko and Hoi-Poi screens away, expanding the Vulture core's energy readings.
"Pepper says you're losing your mind," Ethan said, leaning against a reinforced steel workbench.
"I'm expanding my parameters," Tony corrected, his eyes bloodshot but hyper-focused. He turned to face Ethan. "But let's get the ground rules straight before we start. I am not learning magic. I am not doing hand signs, I am not meditating, and I am not reading dusty books."
"Good," Ethan replied smoothly. "Because you don't have the patience for it, and I wasn't going to teach you anyway."
"I need sensors that track dimensional energy the exact same way they track radiation," Tony continued, walking over to a heavily wired camera lens mounted on a tripod. "I need a Geiger counter for your bullshit. We're starting Merlinbreaker right now."
Ethan looked at the camera. "So you want me to break your expensive toys until you figure out how to read the output."
"Exactly," Tony said, clapping his hands together. "J.A.R.V.I.S., bring up the Mark IV sensor arrays. Calibrate for exotic particle fields."
"Arrays online, Sir," the AI responded. "I must advise you that these sensors are designed for terrestrial astrophysics."
"That's why we're breaking them," Tony said. He pointed at the lens. "Give me a baseline. Something weak."
Ethan raised his right hand. He didn't use a somatic gesture. He just channeled a fraction of his energy, forming a small golden Tao mandala shield over his palm.
The camera lens sparked violently. The glass cracked, and a thin wisp of gray smoke curled out of the casing.
"Sensor array one has experienced a catastrophic overload, Sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. reported politely.
Tony grunted, scribbling a note on his tablet. "Lens melted. Too much raw energy. Skip the shield. Give me a weapon signature."
Ethan closed his hand. The shield vanished. He flicked his wrist downward, cracking a bright orange-red Eldritch whip against the concrete floor.
A fuse box on the far wall blew out with a loud pop. The lights in the left half of the lab died instantly.
"Fascinating," Tony muttered, completely unfazed. He pulled a fresh sensor node from a drawer and hooked it up to a standalone battery pack. "It's not an electrical short. The energy is actively rewriting the localized magnetic field. J.A.R.V.I.S., adjust the dampeners."
For the next three hours, Ethan provided a steady stream of controlled magical data.
He left traces of portal residue in the air. He cast basic warning wards on Tony's desk. He shifted a metal wrench slightly into the Mirror Dimension.
Tony's equipment failed spectacularly. Motherboards fried. Wires caught fire.
Tony didn't get frustrated. He got obsessed. Every blown fuse gave him a new data point, a new parameter to block, a new frequency to isolate. He treated magic entirely as an undocumented branch of quantum physics.
Finally, Tony ripped a processor out of one of his destroyed scanners and wired it directly into a piece of Stark Industries satellite tech. He adjusted the calibration, staring intensely at a small monitor.
"Open a door," Tony said, wiping sweat off his forehead. "Don't go anywhere. Just open it and close it."
Ethan raised his hand and spun his fingers.
A shower of golden sparks tore a circular hole in the air, revealing the quiet library of the Sanctum. Ethan held it open for exactly two seconds, then closed his fist. The portal collapsed.
The lab was quiet.
Tony stared at his monitor.
A sharp green wave spiked across the black screen. It held its shape for exactly 0.7 seconds before flatlining.
Tony slowly set his tablet down. He looked at the green line.
"Got it," Tony whispered. He tapped the screen. "J.A.R.V.I.S., log that frequency. Lock it in."
"Frequency logged, Sir," the AI confirmed.
Ethan walked over, looking at the tiny green blip on the screen.
"You detected a door after it already closed," Ethan noted.
"Yeah, well, tomorrow I detect it while it's open," Tony shot back, tapping the side of the monitor. "Next month, I detect you before you even lift your hand."
A translucent blue screen flared to life in the corner of Ethan's vision.
[Research Chain Stage Complete: First Signature Captured ]
Partner: Tony Stark
Result: Tony Stark successfully detected a weak magical portal residue signature.
Rewards: 3,000 System Points. Ben Tennyson Template Sync +2%. Magi-Tech Research Interface unlocked. Tony Stark Research Efficiency increased when working with Host-provided magical data.
Current Ben Template Synchronization: 16%
Ethan dismissed the screen with a thought.
"Sensing the energy is the easy part," Ethan warned him. "Building metal that doesn't melt when I hit it is entirely different."
"I'll figure it out," Tony said dismissively, already pulling up a fresh schematic. "Go home. I have blueprints to draft."
Ethan shook his head, spun a new portal, and stepped through to the Sanctum.
In the lab, Tony watched the sparks fade. He swiped his current workstation clear.
He opened a highly encrypted, air-gapped private file on his personal server. He dragged the newly acquired magical frequency data directly into it.
The title of the folder glowed in bright blue letters on the center screen.
PROJECT MERLINBREAKER
Tony tapped the keyboard, adding a subtitle line just beneath it.
In Case the Wizard Gets Ideas.
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