Detour
( 3rd POV )
Days past into one another, marked only by the dull ache of overuse and the hiss of soldering irons. They worked together like two halves of the same machine, rarely spoke during the long stretches of labor.
The forge fire cracked faintly, casting flickering shadows across the cave walls. The ceiling above was jagged stone, like a giant's fossilized ribcage, soaked in decades of sand and silence.
The only sounds were the rhythmic clang of Tony Stark's hammer and the occasional cough from Yinsen, whose glasses had grown clouded from the oily smoke that hung like a ghost around them.
Tony wiped sweat off his brow, dark streaks of soot smudging across his temple as he leaned against the worktable, dropping the hammer with a metallic clunk. His chest arc reactor whirred softly, the only high-tech whisper in a room full of salvaged chaos.
"You know," Tony said, breaking the silence, his voice carrying that wry edge, "when we get out of here—and I mean when, not if—what are you gonna do?"
Yinsen looked up from the exposed circuitry he had been fussing over, his brows knitting with momentary surprise. He blinked behind his glasses, then smiled softly, the way a man does when someone asks a question that stings just a bit too much.
"I haven't thought that far," he said, the corners of his mouth lifting, though the sorrow behind his eyes betrayed him.
Tony chuckled, shaking his head and resting an elbow on a half-built gauntlet. "Come on, baldy. You've got to have some sort of bucket list. Beaches. Champagne. Get your doctorate framed properly instead of rolled up in some terrorist toolbox."
Yinsen's hands paused. The humor hung there, unanswered. Then he picked up the soldering tool again and replied with quiet honesty, "I think... I'd like to see my village one more time. If it's still standing."
Tony tilted his head, smirking, but his eyes were curious, patient for once.
"And after that?"
There was a pause.
"I'd rest."
The cave comes to silence. Something about the way Yinsen said it made Tony furrow his brow. Not in confusion, but unease—like he had heard a line from a song that didn't quite resolve.
"You talk like an old man, bud."
"Haha, maybe," Yinsen's smile didn't waver, but his eyes drifted away, focused on nothing in particular. "But sometimes," he murmured, "a man becomes old the moment he loses everything, Mr. Stark."
Tony opened his mouth to reply, but the words snagged in his throat. He didn't get it. Not entirely. Yinsen had mentioned before that he had a family—wife and daughter, gone now, buried under war and loss. But Tony had never pried. He wasn't the prying kind. He hadn't earned the right to.
For once, the snarky philanthropist failed to liftin up the mood.
Instead, Tony just nodded, letting the moment fade like smoke in a breeze.
The two worked on in silence, the comfort of noise replacing the discomfort of memory. The suit was beginning to take shape—ugly, angular, pieced together like a machine built by Frankenstein's ghost with whatever the devil left behind. But it was solid. Strong. Functional. And it would burn through walls like righteous fire if Stark's calculations were right.
Time passed in unknowable quantities. The cave had no clocks. No sun. Only the faint murmur of distant footfalls and occasional grunts from guards beyond the stone.
But then—
Nothing.
Tony paused, hammer halfway to falling, the clang never coming.
Yinsen looked up. They exchanged a glance.
"You hear that?" Tony asked.
"What?"
"Exactly," Tony muttered, standing straight and wiping his hands on his tattered cargo pants. "There's nothing."
The cave was still—too still even for The Ten Rings camp. The generator buzzed like a lazy hornet in the corner, but beyond that, the ambient world had collapsed into a vacuum.
"Shouldn't it be time for the guard shift?" Tony asked, glancing toward the sealed steel door at the edge of the room—his cell, technically. Though he hadn't thought of it as one in days. The place had become more forge than prison.
Yinsen stood, his body tensing as he turned his head toward the entrance of the cave.
"Yes. Usually, they stomp around, shout something at us through the slit, maybe kick the door a few times just to remind us that they're there." Yinsen nodded, his expression tightening.
"Maybe they're late," Tony offered, though his tone lacked conviction.
But feeling suspicious, Tony frowned, before stepping toward the door, boots crunching over debris and metal scraps. He pressed his ear to the cool surface of the door, attempting to eavesdrop.
But after a few minutes, there is nothing.
An eerie silence blanketed the space now, heavier than before.
No voices. No radio chatter. No boots on sand. The world beyond the gate had gone silence.
"Yinsen," Tony said carefully, "lock the tools. Get the blueprints. Just in case."
Yinsen didn't argue as the whole situation made both of them nervous.
Then after instructing Yinsen to pack up, something happen.
BOOM!
"WHAT TH–"
The steel door blew inward with a thunderous roar, chunks of hot metal and sparks scattering across the cave. Tony was thrown backward, landing hard against a crate of wiring. Yinsen ducked and hit the floor, shielding his head
"Cough, cough..."
"Cough, Stark, are you okay?"
When the dust settled, the entrance stood wide open.
"I'm fine." Tony replied while scrambled to his feet, coughing, shielding his eyes. "Shit! Was that them? Did they find out?!"
"No," Yinsen said, peering up slowly, adjusting his glasses. "That wasn't them..." He said while staring at the intruder.
Out of the smoke stepped figures—silhouetted at first, sharp against the dying firelight. They didn't wear the rags and mismatched armor of the Ten Rings.
No, these were different. These people wear a type of medieval armor on their bodies, one with purplish black and the other is metalic silver with red lines on it.
But the one leading them is a young man in his black tactical suit, brushing the dust on top of his hair with a nonchalant look. After he finished, he looks around the cave before calling them.
"Ahaha, sorry for the grand entrance. However, is there Tony Stank in here?"
"..."
.....
( Ken POV )
A few hours earlier...
The desert stretched like an endless canvas of pale gold, broken only by waves of dry rock and the occasional broken husk of a long-dead tree. The air shimmered beneath the noon sun, the light so harsh it felt like even the sand itself would start to crack.
Inside the Shadow Border, though, the oppressive heat was only on the outside, separated from us by layers of reinforced armor, and magecraft shielding that hummed like a heartbeat through the hull.
And thanks for Anastasia cooling spells, the heat would never bother us anyways.
I sat near the rear compartment, leaned back in one of the seats as the vehicle glided smoothly over the dunes. Da Vinci's holographic display flickered across the wall, bathing her and Mash in soft blues and silvers as her fingers danced across the translucent interface.
The screen pulsed with information—data scrolling like ancient runes translated into code.
"We're getting warmer," she called without turning, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear with one hand while she tapped through maps with the other. "Give me five minutes and I'll have the exact coordinates. I'm triangulating from satellite reverb, and some from SHEBA, but this place is off grid even by our standard. I mean, who would like to play a peek a boo in the desert." Da Vinci said while complaining.
"And we're really doing this for one guy?" Mordred's voice cut through the dim hum of the cabin, loud, edged with impatience. She sprawled across the bench opposite me, armor still clinking as she adjusted position for the fifth time in ten minutes. "I mean, no offense, but one guy stuck in a cave? Doesn't seem like a threat to humanity's timeline. So why should us even care?"
Ushiwakamaru sat beside her, "A single thread can shift the entire tapestry of fate. I thought you understand about this kinda thing, Pendragon-san?" Her voice was calm, but the way her fingers tapped against her knees betrayed her growing tension.
Mordred groaned, flopping her head back. "Yeah, yeah. 'Preserve potential anomalies.' Still feels like a waste of my sword thou. This Stark guy better be more important than Jesus, hehe."
Mash stood behind Da Vinci, her eyes were soft but serious as she replied, "He is important, Mordred-san. He may not be a Heroic Spirit, but he's central to this world's future according to Master Ken Clairvoyance. If he dies now… many things fall apart later."
Anastasia sat further along the cabin, her expression unreadable, eyes half-lidded and fixed out the window slit, as she didn't even care about the sudden mission from the Director.
Her Master, Kadoc leaned against the far wall, half-shadowed, hands in his coat pockets and his usual slouch deepening.
"Director Olga's probably just trying to curry favor with someone higher up. Or SHIELD. Or both. But whatever. It's none of my business anyways." His voice was dry, but not dismissive.
Listening to their talk, I only kept silence. I honestly didn't care much about the theatrics or the tension about this sudden mission that Olga order to us. Because I know, with or without our help, this narcissistic guy would be able to escape on his own.
He is one of OAA's favorites after all.
So, I doesn't really care too much about this little detour from their road trip. Instead, I thoughtfully looking toward his system.
[ Missions
Weekly Missions:
- Defeat a group of thugs: 3/3 (3 Saint Quartz Fragment, 10.000 Quantum Piece)
- Rescue a metahumans: 3/3 (3 Saint Quartz Fragment, 30.000 Quantum Piece)
- Cast displacement magecraft: 5/5 (3 Saint Quartz Fragment, 30.000 Quantum Piece)
- Let Mordred call you Daddy voluntarily: 0/1 (3 Saint Quartz Fragment, 50.000 Quantum Piece)
- Told Mash to wear the Dangerous Beast Bikini for you: 0/1 (3 Saint Quartz Fragment, 50.000 Quantum Piece)
Special Missions:
1. Recruit individuals from Marvel Universe into Chaldea: 4/7
Rewards: 1x Random Relic for Summoning Servants; high chance summoning related servant, 15 Saint Quartz, 300.000 Quantum Piece
2. Stop The Ghost Rider (Elias Morrow) from running rampant in Los Angeles: 1/1
Rewards: 6× Saint Quartz, 100.000 Quantum Piece
3. Rescue The soon to be Superior Ironman before sending him back to where he belongs: 0/1
Rewards: 3x Saint Quartz, 50.000 Quantum Piece
*The missions randomly reset every week.
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Currency:
- Saint Quartz: 8
- Saint Quartz Fragment: 15
- Quantum Piece: 481.000 ]
Looking at the slowly replenish SQ after the previous gacha, I couldn't help but grin, putting a smile on my face. Now rather than arguing with them about the important of this mission, I only want to quickly finish it and accepting the reward.
And maybe finish the other mission regarding Mash...
Now I'm MOTIVATED!
"We've got it," Da Vinci declared at last, spinning the display around, pulling me out of my wild thought.
A red dot blinked steadily in the middle of a knotted line of cliffs and ravines. "Cave network about two klicks northeast. Doesn't match any mapped formations—either natural collapse or hand-dug. And this..." she zoomed in, highlighting a faint trace of energy. "...is the crude Stark's arc reactor. That signal is unmistakable."
"How well guarded?" I asked, standing and dusting off my suit with practiced hands. All eyes turned toward me.
Da Vinci's smile faltered into a grim line. "Thermal scans show twenty-three bodies with guns, maybe more underground. Standard patrol cycles every twenty-five minutes. No aerial support detected, but the cave's entrance is fortified. No obvious way in or out."
'Heh, easy enough...'
"Master! Let me–" Just as Mordred was about to speak, I cut her off swiftly.
"Nope! Not today, Mo-chan." I turned my eyes toward the desert map, reading the terrain. "A frontal attack draws attention. So, we go quiet." We could always go kaboom! with the mission, but it's time to fight cleverly.
We Chaldea are not barbarian!
We Chaldea are good civilization!
Ignoring the grumbling lion cub, I looked toward the shadow at the edge of the room, grinning playfully. "Hassan. Your turn."
The woman of a hundred shadows stepped forward, a slight bow in her poise. "As you command, Ken-sama."
Without a sound, she dissolved into the shadows, the folds of her cloak melting into the dim corridor before vanishing entirely. The only sign she'd ever been there was a faint whiff of ash and old incense.
Now all we could do was wait.
'Hehe, I'm looking forward to meet you, the cursed one...'
.....
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A/N: Give me the stones, comments and reviews, I appreciate it. Thanks!