Tony grunted. whatever he had expected, he found out worse. Killian made EXTREMIS, got handicapped people on it and knowing it wouldn't work out legally, then sold it to Mandarin. That was cheap. And a dreading feel in gut told him that it was just the tip of the iceberg.

He spared a glance at his phone when it connected

"Give me a full report." he asked

"Yeah, I'm still eating that candy." Harley replied "Do you want me to keep eating it?"

"How much have you had?"

"Two or three bowls."

"Can you still see straight?"

"Sort of."

"That means you're fine. Give me Jarvis." Tony waited for a second "Jarvis, how are we?"

"I seem to do quite well for a stretch, and then at the end of the sentence I say the wrong cranberry." JARVIS replied "And, sir, you were right. Once I factored in available AIM downlink facilities I was able to pinpoint the Mandarin's broadcast signal."

"What are we talking? Far East, Europe, North Africa, Iran, Pakistan, Syria? Where is it?"

"Actually, sir, it's in Miami."

Tony sighed. Miami? Mandarin was hidden in Miami? That wasn't likely

"Okay, kid, I'm gonna have to walk you through rebooting Jarvis's speech drive, but not right now." Tony grunted once again "Harley, where is he really? Just look on the screen and tell me where it is."

"Um, it does say Miami, Florida."

Tony groaned. Miami, was it, then

"Okay, first things first, I need the armour. Where are we at with it?"

"Uh, it's not charging."

The tyres screeched as Tony forcefully applied the brakes, pulling at the side of the road. His breaths started becoming shorter and shallower

"...but the power source is questionable. It may not succeed in revitalising the Mark 42."

"What's questionable about electricity?" Tony asked, breath hitching "All right?"

Tony paused for a second, wheezing and slightly coughing "It's my suit, and I can't... I'm not gonna...I don't wanna...Oh, God, not again."

Tony quickly got out and collapsed outside, leaning on the car

He heard Harley gasp

"Are you having another attack? I didn't even mention New York."

"Right,"Tony wheezed "and then you just said it by name while denying having said it. Okay, um, uh..."

his breath started normalizing and reduced to panting only

"God, what am I gonna do?" he asked and leaning back, closed his eyes "Just breathe. Really, just breathe."

"You're a mechanic, right?" Harley asked

"Right."

"You said so."

"Yes, I did."

"Why don't you just build something?"

"Okay. Thanks, kid."


Rose sighed. her mouth was as dry as Sahara desert. She could even feel the cracks on her lips. they still hadn't resumed her EXTREMIS intake that was because they were modifying it specifically for her. After Killian had left about an hour ago, they had taken her blood and had been figuring out why her body was not only rejecting the serum but at the same time, remained in one piece.

And seeing her dropping vitals, they had put her on glucose IV but she knew it was just temporary.

Rose knew somewhere that the magic in her blood was the reason the two were mixing like oil and water and she wasn't planning on telling that to them. and even if she did, it'd take them decades to finally crack the code of her magic and mix it with EXTREMIS. But she knew one thing, her blood in the hands of these morons could very dangerous.

opening of the big metal doors of the warehouse, made her look there.

"W-What?" she demanded seeing the person Killian was carrying in. It was Pepper. and unconscious Pepper.

Once Killian and his men placed her on a similar stretcher, stripped her off to her bra and leggings only, Killian looked at her with a huge smirk

"So, are you ready tell what you are now?"


Tony had did a lot of stupid things but this would definitely take the cake. If Rose didn't kill him first for it. Or Pepper, for that matter.

He had broke in to the location JARVIS and Harley had so gracefully provided him. After knocking down a bunch of guards and getting a comparatively easy entry, Tony was thankful for the lessons he got from Happy. He finally found the room that was shown on the TV as the mandarin base. There were props, a huge bed which was covered in a comforter over human-shapes.

Tony carefully approached the bed, gun aiming for anything and in a swift move he pulled off the comforter and jumped back when he saw two sleepwaer clad girls in bed.

Seeing him, the girls gasped and huddled together, only for Tony to shush them. then he heard the toilet flush. He quickly rushed to hide behind the headboard as the girls went back to bed as if nothing happened. A man, the Mandarin, came out chuckling to himself

"I wouldn't go in there for 20 minutes." he laughed "Now, which one of you is Vanessa?"

"That's me." one of the girls said

"Ah! Nessie." he chuckled and threw something at her which she caught "Did you know that fortune cookies aren't even Chinese?"

"There's some guy over here." the other girl muttered sleepyly but the Mandarin ignored her

"They're made by Americans, based on a Japanese recipe."

Tony rolled his eyes, came out, gun aiming at him

"Hey!" he yelled

"Bloody hell. Bloody hell." the man muttered, hands up in surrender

"Don't move." Tony ordered

"I'm not moving."

"You want something? Take it. Although the guns are all fake because those wankers wouldn't trust me with the real ones."

"What?"

"Hey, do you fancy either of the birds?"

Realization set in "You're not him." he grunted taking a step forward as he cocked his gun "The Mandarin, the real guy. Where? Where's the Mandarin? Where is he?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." the man muttered, falling on the recliner "He's here. He's here, but he's not here. He's here, but he's not here."

"What do you mean?"

"It's complicated. Hey, it's complicated. It is."

"Uncomplicate it."

When he noticed that he wasn't going to speak, Tony looked over his shoulder "Ladies, out. Get out of the bed. Get into the bathroom."

Once the women left, Tony went and locked the door after them. He turned to face the guy back only to see him crawling away. Roling his eyes, Tony shot a few centimeters away from his face, which made the man crawl back onto the recliner and relaxed a bit

"My name is Trevor. Trevor Slattery."

"What are you, a decoy? You're a double, right?" Tony asked

"What, you mean like an understudy?" Trevor asked "No, absolutely not."

Tony grunted and raised his gun aiming for his face

"Don't hurt the face!" Trevor exclaimed "I'm an actor."

"You got a minute to live. Fill it with words."

"It's just a role. "The Mandarin," see, it's not real."

"Then how did you get here, Trevor?" Tony asked as Trevor slid behind and casually sat on the recliner

"Well, I, um, had a little problem with, um, substances. And I ended up doing things, no two ways about it, in the street, that a man shouldn't do."

"Next?"

"Then, they approached me about the role, and they knew about the drugs."

"What did they say? They'd get you off them?"

"They said they'd give me more. They gave me things. They gave me this palace." Trevor waved around "They gave me plastic surgery. They gave me things." and with that his head rolled back and he dozed off

"Did you just nod off? Hey." Tony kicked him as he jolted wake

"No, and a lovely speedboat." Trevor added then paused "And the thing was, he needed someone to take credit for some accidental explosions.. Boom!"

""He"?" Tony frowned "Killian?"

"Killian." Trevor confirmed

"He created you?"

"He created me."

"Custom-made terror threat."

"Yes. Yes. His think tank thinked it up." Trevor got up and walked to the table as Tony sat on the recliner "The pathology of a serial killer. The manipulation of Western iconography." he turned with two beer cans and spoke without his british accent "Ready for another lesson? Blah, blah, blah." he extended the can to Tony

"No."

"Of course," he said, back in his regular voice "it was my performance that brought the Mandarin to life."

"Your performance? Where people died?" Tony asked

"No, they didn't. Look around you. The costumes, green screen. Honestly, I wasn't on location for half this stuff. And when I was, it was movie magic, love."

Tony furrowed his brows and got up, gun aiming at Trevor

"I'm sorry, but my daughter is probably dead and I've I got a best friend who's in a coma and he might not wake up. So you're gonna have to answer for that. You're still going down, pal. You under..."

Tony stopped when he saw Trevor look behind him. With a swift motion, Tony turned around to catch sight of the bald guy from Tennessee. Tony tried to attack, but he punched him across the face, knocking him out


Rose hated it. She kept on looking at Pepper who wasn't showing any signs of waking up

"Okay, let's make a deal" Killian chuckled "You tell what you are and I'll let Pepper go. If you choose not to, I'll make one of my own"

Rose glared at Killian. she knew he was lying. and she also knew that no matter what she says, he will not let go of Pepper and will inject her with EXTREMIS. she could barely do a basic spell with the amount of magic in her, which had steadily decreased after she heaved all the EXTREMIS and blood.

The best she could do at the moment was to stall. Stall as long as possible and keep Pepper away from it

"I give you my word" Killian added

Lie. Terrible Lie

Rose grunted and took a deep breath "fine. You want to know what I'm? Well, I'm a witch"

Killian shot her a brief deadpanned look and then chuckled "You seriously think that this is right time for jokes?"

rose frowned "What's wrong with you? You wanted to know what I'm. and now I'm telling you"

"A witch?" Killian raised his brow "Aren't witches supposed to be old, wart-y, slightly green and incredibly ugly, not to mention fictional characters?"

"You mean like aliens and Norse gods?"

Killian fixed her another look "You are right" he nodded once "so, Rosie, tell me all there's to know about being a witch?"

Rose frowned "What do you want to know?"

"How did you make that shield thing-y and took a missile head on?"

"That's a protective barrier of pure energy"

"Amazing. and did you just, like think it up and it appeared?"

"Yes"

"so is it energy you can manipulate or is it magic?"

"Isn't that one and the same thing?" Rose asked

"If you say so" Killian nodded "and is this magic the one protecting you from going all kaboom!"

"Yes" she replied. No matter what, she was willing to give anything more than the vaguest answers and apparantly Killian was stupid enough not to ask her the right questions

"So, how did you get it? accident? experiment? alien radiation?"

"I was born with it" she replied "and for the love of god, can you get me something to drink? I can't talk with a dry mouth"

But Killian ignored her request

"Born with it" he repeated "so, Tony also has the same or was it from your mother? No no no" he chuckled "Tony can't have it. What he has is too big of a ego."

"My mother was the last person like me on Earth"

Killian nodded "So you are the last of your kind?"

Rose badly wanted to roll her eyes. She'd be damned if she told him about the Wizarding World. Not only would it attract some unwanted attention, the whole magical world would hunt her alive for outing them to a muggle. a deranged psychotic muggle at that.

"Yes. why? you expecting a while secret society or something?"

"More to experiment on" Killian shrugged

"You are sick" Rose frowned

Killian didn't respond

"sir" the doctor approached Killian

"Are they mixing?"

"No" the doctor replied "and the fascinating thing is sir, that not only her blood and the EXTREMIS not mixing, her blood is somehow, umm, neutralising the serum"

Killian looked at her with narrowed eyes while Rose gaped at the doctor

Her blood was doing what?

"It is the magic, isn't it?" Killian asked

When Rose didn't reply, still trying to get over her shock, Killian took out his gun and shot just next to Rose's head, which grabbed her attention. rose realizing what happened, frowned at Killian

"Are you crazy?" she demanded "you could have shot me, idiot. I could have died!"

"I asked a question" he frowned "Your magic is doing this, isn't it?"

"how would I know?" she asked "this is my first time of being a Guinea pig."

18 years since she realized she had magic. and it still didn't stop amazing her. She loved Magic!

"Is there a way to make her blood mix with the serum?" Killian asked

"We're working on that, sir. But her blood is very strong, very...dominating."

Killian paused as if thinking

"Can we make another serum with her blood as one of the core element?"

Rose's eyes widened. What?!

"No. No, you can't do that" Rose frowned

The doctor thought for a moment "that should be plausible. and with her blood as a core element, her body should accept it as well"

"then get to it" Killian quickly replied, checking his watch. he turned and started walking out "and get the red head on EXTREMIS"

"You promised!" Rose yelled

"I lied"


A/N: Okay, i know this is a small chapter, but I've got a proper explanation.

Tomorrow morning I'm going out of town with family for a mini-vacation. so I'm a little busy with packing and stuff. Especially when my sister hid my kindle reader out of a grudge match.

Anyway, I won't posting any updates until 10th of July (that's when I'm returning). I thought of taking my laptop with me only for my mom to tell me that there would no wifi or any kind of internet connections whatsoever.

And thank you to every person who read, reviewed, favorited and followed my story. You have no idea what it personally means to me *sobbing and wiping tears of joy*

well then, see you on 10th July or maybe 11th.