Child of Iron

by MalcolmTent6730

Anthony Taylor's mother was his entire world, so when she died, he was lost and alone in the world. But when he starts getting new skills and items from an incomprehensible force called the Celestial Forge he sees a chance to turn things around, and in the process maybe even surpass the father that was never in his life. Tony Stark will never see him coming. Jumpchain story.

4. Chapter 4

After you finish your dinner you walk Felicia out to her limo. She had been with you all day, though between the sex, the food, and the long nap it didn't really feel like it. She didn't want to stay out too late and worry her father, so you opened her limo door for her with a gentle kiss, waving goodbye as your lady drove off. After that you headed upstairs to shower and change and considered what to do next. You thought about making a few more glasses prototypes, soft physics would make them easier to build even without creating an alternate design, but you weren't really feeling that right now. No, you wanted to make some money, sure, but you wanted to do something physical.

You remembered a kid at MSST named Sawyer talk about some illegal cage match down by the river, he'd invited you to check it out with him once but you hadn't felt like going. You were pretty sure it went down at night and it was around seven now, you could take come cash out of the ATM on the way and bet on yourself. Between your Legion training and fitness and your Artisan perk you must be pretty badass. Should be easy money. Before leaving though you decided to make sure you wouldn't be found out. You were going to have an identity soon, a big name to live up to, and you didn't want it getting out that you could fight so well. Best to keep that in reserve.

You dropped into your chair and pulled a few things together. Using some pliers and a hammer you smashed out a sheet of steel, working it easier than should be possible because of Duct Tape master. Duct tape master was an odd perk, it was both limited and insanely versatile. You couldn't use it to say, replace plutonium or adamantium, you could use it to substitute steel for another common metal, even a much stronger one like titanium. You could even use steel like it was gold, for audio pickups and such, though you needed to use about five times more of it for some reason. With practice you could feel spots where you could abuse the perk, make audio pickups with the conductivity of gold and the strength of steel, or a mask with the softness and flexibility of leather and the strength of steel. You worked the mask into the shape of a face, but rather than eyes, you flattened and shaped the steel near the eyes to resemble glass lenses. One way glass was tricky and making the steel transparent from one side pushed the limits of your perk but you managed.

The mask was beautiful of course, artisan perfecting every line and you felt the two perks synergize in a spark of genius much like the glasses had been, but you weren't done, you sclupted a second mask to lay flat against the first, manipulating the steel to be comfortable and soft against skin and instead of putting them flat together you created a network of circuits against the inside of the first one. Night vision, a rebreather, hell a minor touch cooling system so your face didn't get sweaty, and a contour strap system that would make the damn thing impossible to take off without knowing exactly where to press but would lie flat under your hair. Soft physics allowed the two masks to fit together flush even with the admittedly slim mechanics inside. As you were working you felt another ping off the forge.

Celestial forge accessed:Silken Mountainriver Diagram (Talisman Emperor Mortal Dimension) (600CP) Insufficient CP: 100 CP banked. Total banked CP: 250.

As you finished up your production you felt the mask click together in place and just sort of become...more. Synergy was a special effect you'd noticed. It allowed you to push your perks a bit farther than they normally could go and the finish product came out better than it should. Just using the perks together wasn't enough, you had to strike a spark of brilliance, have an epiphany, and the perks needed to blend together just right. You knew without even trying this mask wasn't something you could make again at your current level. The glasses had been a borderline spark that could be reproduced with enough time and effort, though soft physics made it much easier, but this mask was an object of perfection. It occurred to you that art rarely repeats itself, and that when your artisan perk was involved in boosting an item to truly absurd levels by definition it made that item unique. Something you might need to consider when leaning on artisan in your designs, the perk said with practice you could make things even further beyond the realm of mortal artistry, but you got the feeling such creations weren't meant to be mass produced. The further you pushed them past the limit the less likely you could ever make them again.

You looked down at your mask in wonder. You would think a contoured face mask of steel would look boring or basic but this one didn't. The metal was somehow both darker and shinier than it should have been, and Soft Physics had subtly warped the way the features sat, you couldn't stare at any one part of it, like your eyes were sliding off the contours of the metal, and your focus slipped outward to take in the mask as a whole. The metal was somehow reminiscent of a funeral shroud, the alien contours of the facial structure speaking of a great dark king in a horrible tomb, anything but peaceful in his hungry repose. You decided a unique item like this needed a name. You decided to call it... Glory.

Celestial Artifact created! Glory: Rank D! Congratulations, you have created a true artifact of the celestial forge! By synergizing three perks and catalyzing it with your natural Spark of Genius you have created a wonder of the world. Your connection to the universe grows deeper! Continue to create wonders to understand more about what this means. Synergize more perks to create higher ranked wonders, and deepen your connection even faster! Celestial artifacts are a part of the forge and cannot be recreated, but they also can't be destroyed. If damaged or broken Glory will reappear in its complete form in your workshop after forty eight hours.

Your eyes snap open wide. What...the actual fuck was that? Your power had spoken to you. Not just about a new perk but about itself. You felt...different. That deeper connection to the universe thing wasn't bullshit, you could feel it. Feel like you were closer to...something. A door? A path? You shook you head to dismiss the thoughts. Didn't matter. You fastened Glory over your face and slipped out of the house, heading toward the riverside spot where Sawyer had told you the fights would be. It only took about twenty minutes to get there. And when you did you were a bit intimidated.

You had you Legion memories, but they were less immediate than your real ones, you knew the Legion training changed you, but they were small changes mostly, you were still the same person, and Anthony Taylor had never been to a place like this. Thinking of your last name made you think of your mother. She and Tony had obviously never been married, since he din't even know you existed, so you never got the Stark name. You knew she had always regretted denying you that, but it hadn't bothered you. You were proud to be a Taylor. You didn't know much about your mothers family, she kept you away from them because she said she didn't approve of how they lived their lives, but it was your moms name. It was all you had left of her. Even once you came out to the media you weren't going to get rid of it. You didn't need your fathers name.

You had stopped on the way to take out four hundred dollars, you daily limit, and slipped up next to the announcer by the side of the huge cage to place your bet. Odds for new fighters were variable, but they weighted them by size, and being only five foot eight or so and fairly slim even with the legion training you managed to negotiate ten to one odds if you were willing to fight a ringer. You handed over the four hundred and stepped off to the side to get ready, telling the announcer he could introduce you as Archimedes when it was your turn to fight. The current bout was a nasty thing. The large man with a scar was brutalizing his opponent, a red haired freckled guy with a high and tight haircut that made you think he might be former military. Or hell current military who knew. As you watched you felt the forge fire again, a second time tonight, and somehow after making Glory you felt like you could sense the flow of energy better.

Celestial forge accessed: Forge and Ore (Silmarillion) (600CP) Insufficient CP: 100 CP Banked. Total Banked CP:350.

Another miss. Shame, but probably for the best, you didn't need to be distracted. You started stretching as you waited. Then you began to run some drills. The Legion didn't focus on hand to hand, the style they taught was basic and pretty brutal. You weren't supposed to lose your shield or sword, and if you did you were supposed toput the enemy down fast so you could get them back. That said you were a Named member of the Legion, and aside from apparently making you a bit stronger and tougher than someone your size ought to be that meant you were good. Experienced. The moves were basic sure, but you knew them like the back of your hand, and they were a martial art. Artisan honed them, perfected them. You weren't stupid enough to think that made you unbeatable, there were too many factors in battle for something like artistry to make the final difference, even if you were perfect, the world wouldn't be. You weren't a mind reader. But you should do ok.

The rhythm of the familiar moves felt good, practiced and soothing, and you felt Artisan adjust the patterns your body knew so well. Extending a punch here, shifting your footing there, turning your simple, brutal style into a flowing, rolling thing. Not like water, heavier and more solid than that. Like an avalanche, a rockslide of efficiency and death. Before you knew it your name was being called, and you were on the way up to the cage. Your heart was racing and you could feel yourself bouncing on the balls of your feet as you walked, like the up and down motion was a bellows pumping fire into your heart. When you finally reached the cage though, that fire dwindled, to be replaced by ice. Because you knew the person on the other side of the ring.

Colleen Wing stood across from you. Hair pulled back, dressed in white. The announcer introduced her as the "Daughter of the Dragon" but you were frozen. This was a bad place. You were here to hurt someone. That may not be the point of the fight but it WOULD be a side effect and you didn't want to hurt Colleen. But you had already put the money up, and just because you didn't want to hurt her didn't mean she would share that view. Between Glory and the completely different musculature and bearing from the Legion training there was a less than zero chance she would recognize you, which meant a less than zero chance of her holding back. Shit.

Before you could think more the announcer finished calling the fight, and the battle was on. Your bouncing ceased. Legion fighting wasn't bouncy, that had just been to hype you up. The Legion style was grounded and heavy. Your feet were solidly planted and your knees bent to lower your center of gravity. Colleen was...gone. Wait what? You were lucky to be wearing Glory, because it soaked some of the impact of her heel as it smashed against the side of your face. Instinct before the Legion would have had you reel back, but your training took over now, and you surged forward smashing into the lightning fast woman with your shoulder to put her off balance and stomping down on her instep with a hard downward kick. Colleen hissed in pain and leapt backward, putting distance between you and you sunk back into your guard to take stock of the situation.

Your fucking face hurt. She had dropped right into your blind spot for that first kick, and you realized the issue with Legion fighting. You were trained to fight soldiers using similar methods of combat or mindless goblins. The legion didn't fight martial artists, and though artisan was helping you compensate that just meant you were making the wrong moves perfectly. Not to mention Colleen was FAST. You had muscle and training but you were also sixteen. Your body wasn't fully developed and the Legion combat style was stationary by design to maximize shieldwall efficiency. This was a really bad match for you. That said it wasn't hopeless. You felt yourself adjusting as you fought, artisan helping you improve in the art of combat as a whole. You had slowed her down with that stomp so she should be coming in more carefully, and careful meant slow enough to pummel.

Hopefully the injury would stop her from doing that weird houdini vanishing blindspot crap she pulled at the beginning of the fight. Looking back you're pretty sure she went limp and used the falling motion to roll under your line of sight. You shifted your gaze to her center of gravity. Legion combat was mostly stand up, so they taught you to watch the eyes for tells. A good policy when fighting someone with a sword or throwing a punch, but less useful for acrobatic roundhouse kicks and shit. She shuffled closer as you watched, waiting, for the moment she would strike. This time you saw the shift in her center as she wound up and had your guard up when she kicked. Which was way less useful than it sounded since her blow felt like it was seconds from snapping your fucking arm. Dear god her hits were heavy. You felt a subtle build up in the back of your head and paled, fuck the forge was going to trigger again in a second, becoming closer to the universe or whatever gave you a sense of when it would happen, you needed to throw her off balance before it did or you would be wide open when the roll hit. You bullrushed her again, your full weight charging forward just as the forge triggered.

Celestial forge accessed: Hammer And Anvil | Gimmick and Trick | Fire and Ice (The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild - TG) (700CP) Insufficient CP: 100 CP banked. Total banked CP: 450.

Your shoulder connected and shoved her back even as you lost focus for a second, but momentum carried you through and kept her on the back foot. Better still you had her pushed back against the chain link, and with brutal efficiency started raining blows down on her smaller form. The didn't all hit. More than half she managed to slip, but your footing was solid and your blows were backed by Named strength and decades of experience sharpened through artisans corrections. The blows that landed were heavy, and each one slowed her a little more, boxed her in a bit more as your slowly learned more about the art of combat. Not to say it was free, as she got more cornered she fought harder, and she was good. You felt a rib break under a brutal inside knee to the body, a fist smash into your ear behind where your mask was and you felt things go hazy but you kept going.

You were trading blows like a hailstorm, no defense, just a maelstrom of violence and pain as you hammered each other, and you could see her face split in the same manic grin yours was. You were loving this. The pain was a focus, a sharpening stone against the razors edge of your consciousness as you threw everything you had at her and she gave it back just as good. You felt artisan blending all the pain and experience and adjustments together into a burning heat, bringing the edge of your skills to a white hot blaze as her blows hammered your instincts into shape. It was beautiful. It was almost a shame when your fist clipped her temple and she dropped like a stone, but you caught her, slinging her arm over a shoulder to hold her up rather than let her fall to the disgusting ring floor, and turned to the audience, lifting her unconscious fist in the air with yours to the screaming cheers of the fans, You grinned under your mask at the roars. This had been a good decision, though you should probably get yourself and Colleen to a hospital. Or actually maybe separate hospitals. Your fucking ribs were killing you. After that though? You wondered what the hell you should do tomorrow.

You got home a few hours later. You had taken your mask off and slipped into a crowded emergency room to have your ribs set and wounds cleaned. The staff was so exhausted they were barely awake and between that and the fifty other people there you doubted anyone noticed you. After showing up you decided even the small amount of paranoia you did show was unwarranted, there were ALOT of beat up teenagers, some from fights themselves, Plus anyone who saw you fight would have figured you for a veteran, so they wouldn't have been looking for a teenager anyway. Still you tried to be careful and doubled back a few times on the way home. You'd won a solid chunk of money, and being followed would be a bad thing. You made sure to have them drop Colleen off at a different hospital first, and watched her go in, so she would be fine.

After you got a few hours of sleep you woke up feeling refreshed and ready to start the day. The absolute ass kicking you had suffered had healed mostly over the night and was now just minor soreness. Even your broken rib had healed in place, which made you damn glad you'd had someone set it for you. You shot a text off to Felicia wishing her good morning and asking if she wanted to do something after school. You weren't planning on going back. With the money in your account plus your winnings you had around ten grand, and you'd only be making more as you went. Today you were planning to hit the midnight market. The midnight market, counter to what its name and similarity to the Queens night market may suggest, was always open. It had started as a few booths from the night market that weren't really for public consumption, and then sort of spiraled. The market had everything from bootleg DVDs to alien tech, and you could get nearly anything there if you knew where to look.

You stashed your winnings from the night before in your shoe (almost impossible to steal money from under someones feet and no one checks anyway) and after a quick scrambling of some eggs you headed out for the market. The Midnight Market may have been open all the time but it was always in the dark. They set the booths back under a bridge by the river in the older part of town having moved it away from Queens when it got too big and too illegal. It was suspected someone big was bankrolling the Market, because cops never came around the place, even if someone called. Almost everyone left each other alone there despite the lack of police presence though, Never know who was packing an alien laser gun or something at the Market.

The weather was biting as you came into sight of the booths. You wandered around for about twenty minuted before spotting something interesting at a table nearby. You pull your hoodie around you trying to get warm as you step up next to the table of broken alien tech. Mid February is cold everywhere but especially in New York. Luckily the radiant temperature system in Glory goes either way so at least your face isn't getting numb. You discover when speaking to the vendors that the unusual dimensions of the mask evens distorts and alters your voice. You browse through the table of goods, looking for anything you can use, you consider getting a metal sample but anything metallic is way out of your price range, even scrap. You scowl at the prices and move on from the alien table, ignoring the table with the supposed super heroin where two men are going on about the heir to Rand Enterprises being alive after his plane crash. You sympathize with the guy a bit, and wonder if people will be talking about you like that once your identity comes out. After fifteen minutes or so of searching you feel the forge trigger again.

Celestial forge accessed: Environmental Tolerance IV (Essential Body Modification Supplement) (400CP) Sufficient CP! Purchased: 400 CP. Remaining CP 150.

You blinked as your body suddenly adjusted to the cold. Well, that was convenient. Kind of a letdown to be honest but hey you could think of worse abilities to get. If nothing else this should make experiments with new tech you may get easier to deal with. No longer needing it you decided to strip off your hoodie and tie it around your waist. The t shirt you wore would normally be untenable for February but now you felt like you were spending time in a room temperature board room. Hell you were pretty sure you were even fireproof up to a certain point and even magic wouldn't work well. Unfortunately the environmental part meant targeted attacks would still do full damage.

Starting to feel like this entire trip had been a waste of time you headed to the next table when you saw something interesting. On a booth off to the side of you you spot a set of beads. You had been flexing Duct Tape master since you got here, it gave you a vague idea of the value of materials so you knew what kind of conversion rate you could get with other mats. The unassuming beads at the jewelry stand were made of something REALLY rare. Making sure not to tip your hand at all by seeming too interested you went up to the jewelry counter. Acting casually you picked a few things (a pretty emerald and gold cuff bracelet for Felicia that ran you a few hundred bucks and a matching set of earrings) and then casually grabbed the bracelet. You relied heavily on artisan as you snagged all of the objects and headed out of the market being careful not to move too fast, acting like none of this was a big deal.

You had held gold on multiple occasions and even handled platinum in small amounts when stripping components. Rarity and value were kind of subjective with Duct Tape master since it was a crafting power. Gold was rare and high value and diamonds were considered basically garbage, so there was a few quirks, but the stuff these beads were made of was RARE. You wandered down a few streets before slipping into a warehouse and through your archway into your lab. You have multiple scanning and testing machines in here and you run a full battery of tests on the beads, getting more and more excited as you do. These things are fucking crazy. You've never even seen tech like this. First of all the metal you sensed is...weird. It sucks up any vibrations it touches. Second of all the beads seem to be some kind of ultra long range comm unit and even a medical device. After about an hour of research you find hidden files on the things with massive amounts of medicine related files and you get so excited you accidentally do something potentially...stupid.

When running a current through the beads you accidentally hit a redundancy protocol in the comm unit and the beads start to...glow. And before you can even blink a girl appears above them. Which is a fucking problem. Because since you're in your workshop you took your damn mask off. You freeze in place. The pretty dark skinned girl in the hologram seems just as shocked as you are, and both of us stare open mouthed at each other for about thirty seconds before she breaks the silence, asking the obvious question "Who the hell are you?" Her voice is accented with something you don't recognize, maybe an african accent of some kind, you don't have much experience with that kind of thing.

You blink for a few more seconds before answering without thinking "I'm Anthony. Why, who are you?" You wince as soon as it's out of your mouth. You shouldn't have said that. At the very least you know whoever this person is can't track you to your lab. The pocket dimension your workshop is in doesn't really exist anywhere on earth as far as you can tell, and if it does it's definitely not anywhere near where you entered the archway an hour or two ago. That said, with a face and a name anyone that could build WHATEVER this was could definitely use facial recognition to find you. You weren't in any databases or anything that you knew of but traffic cams would have you running all over new york. Fuck.

The girl doesn't seem angry though. Just curious. being able to make something this complicated at what looked to be around your age makes her one of the smartest people you've ever even talked to. She squints at you suspiciously as if deciding how much to say before huffing out a sigh and rolling her eyes "I am Shuri. Where did you find these beads? From your accent I take it you are american, but your location isn't showing up on our scanners, and those should not be in the possession of anyone but our people." You notice she is being very careful not to mention who exactly those people are but you don't begrudge her a little op sec. The resources needed to design something this complex must be immense, and you would be cagy about an operation on that scale too if you were part of it. Before you could answer though you felt the forge fire again.

Celestial forge accessed: Magic is the Mother of Invention (The Magicians - TV Show) (600CP) Insufficient CP: 100 CP banked. Total banked CP: 250.

Using Artisan you act like nothing happened, although you're somewhat annoyed about the absolute lack of any advanced tech you're getting. You still feel like you're missing a key part of your future engineering style. Regardless you push past the flash of irritation and consider how to respond to the question.

You decide your best bet is a bit of judicious truth telling. They shouldn't have any trouble finding you in new york but if you give up the location and throw them off the reason you have the things they shouldn't care too much. "Well I bought these at a sort of flea market in new york city. I noticed they seemed a bit weird so I decided to mess with them a bit and accidentally triggered.,..whatever this is. What are these things?"

You try to deflect from questions about where you are, though you doubt it escaped her notice that you're in a fully stocked lab environment with testing capabilities and that she can't locate with her own tech. Regardless of how obviously suspicious you are she takes the bait. "Those are Kimoyo beads. They are use for communication and can even stabilize injuries in emergency situations." You admit that's pretty cool. If you'd had them last night you wouldn't have needed to go to the hospital at all. Shuri narrowed her eyes as if in contemplation but then begrudgingly continued "We do not have any people in new york city, and mail is not safe with items such as those. If you could hold onto them we will collect them when we can. I must warn you though, those beads are quite valuable. I would not carry them on you. Keep them hidden, and contact me if you notice any suspicious people."

You were surprised by that, you expected her to have some agent who could swoop in and pick them up now. After a few more dire warnings about what someone would do to you for that tech you told Shuri you were going to lock them in a box so no one would find them. Since you figured these people could find it anyway you gave her your cell number since part of having no location meant incoming calls would be nearly impossible to make on something like the beads. Your cell however got perfect service in here, you were guessing because it was your phone and whatever forces isolated this place considered calls on a phone viable methods of contact, though you doubted the phone would be trackable any better than the beads.

After you managed to get her off the beads you immediately shoved them in a crude signal jamming box you made on the spot and stuffed the damn things under a table. You would definitely do more research on the technology but you clearly didnt have the tools or skills to do it safely yet. You slumped back into your chair and let out a harsh breath. With all the crazy physical perks and stuff you had lost track of what it is you were supposed to be doing. Money was great and honing your combat skills would be a good edge if it came to it but the important part of all this was the tech. Building and creating. You sat up and poured over your desk. You needed some kind of edge. You had a variety of useful abilities and types of tech, but most of them were supplemental.

You decided to look over your designs for the hard tech psi detector. You hadn't had the parts for it, and still didn't really, but with Duct Tape master you could manage something similar enough to work. Besides having a psychic security system would be useful. Your brain was sacred, and telepaths gave you the creeps. However instead of just following the plans you slowly put the device together, studying the connections and makeup, hoping to iodentify some sort of advanced principles you could use in your other work, some kind of foundational tech that could begin what you would consider YOUR style. Like the arc reactor has been for your father.

You found...nothing. Well. Nothing foundational. Nothing you could use to start a whole new branch of tech. You did find something very interesting. With the detector you could identify and pinpoint psions. Part of how that worked was seemingly by making use of psion reactive materials. The sensitive stuff was whatever, that was how you picked up the psions when you were looking, but a few components were made of NON reactive materials. Being able to create an approximation of a material that blocked psychic particles was HUGE. You could make shielding and armor that other people didn't have access too. With soft physics you could even make them unobtrusive. You decided to test it, and spent about twenty minutes assembling a baseball cap out of the materials, abusing the hell out of Duct Tape master and soft physics.

You didnt synergize either perk with Artisan, which you also used, no spark of genius or anything, but in a way that was good, because it means we could keep making these, if we could find a damn market for them. The hat looked boring and unobtrusive but it fit snugly and felt comfortable on your head. With this thing on you were now immune to telepathic eavesdropping, which you hadnt realized worried you as much as it did. As you took in your new toy however you felt the forge fire. You smiled to yourself at the timing, hoping it was something good.

Celestial forge accessed: Unfed Forge (Desolate Era Part II - The Chaosverse) (400CP) Insufficient CP: 100 CP banked. Total banked CP 350.

You grunted at that, annoyed by the useless roll and slumped back into your chair. Next time you would have four hundred and fifty CP hopefully you could get something good and finally truly start on your path. The only question was what to do now?

Environmental Tolerance IV (Essential Body Modification Supplement) (400CP)
You are not damaged by hazardous environments, though this does not provide you a method of propulsion.
I: You no longer need to breathe and do not suffer from temperatures between -100C and +100C (-150F to +200F). You are immune to most radiation (up to about 1,000 mSv; the amount experienced during unshielded exposure to space).
II: As tier I, plus you do not suffer from temperatures below 1500C (+2700F) or the effects of pressure lower than 1000 atmospheres (including the effects of vacuum). You are immune to the effects of radiation at all levels.
III: As tier II, but the protection extends to any non-magical environmental source.
IV: As tier III, but the protection extends to magical environments such as energy planes.