Erick sat in the command chair in the mansion's main room, his body still marked by the ntal exhaustion of training with gan and his conversation with Morgana. The room was a bunker of luxury and precision: matte black E10 walls, recessed lights projecting a cold, blue glow, floating consoles that responded to the slightest gesture. Before him, the air was saturated with holograms. Several three-dinsional panels slowly rotated, looping back the most brutal monts of the fight against Lobo. He saw everything from different angles—caras in the Titan armor's helt, recordings from surveillance drones, even Baymax's point of view, which had recorded every second of the disastrous confrontation. The sound was off, but Erick didn't need it. The mory was too fresh: the impact of the Czarnian's fists, the cracking of his own bones, the warm blood seeping inside the destroyed armor.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes narrowed, analyzing each fra with the coldness of soone dissecting an enemy. There was the mont the repulsor shield cracked like glass. There, the flaming punch that barely singed the bastard's gray skin. There, the plasma hook that Lobo deflected with a guttural laugh before sinking his claws into his chest. Minutes. Just minutes. Less than twenty, to be exact. And even then, Erick had been reduced to minced at inside a crushed can.
"Engineer, what can you tell ?"
His voice ca out low, controlled, but laden with the frustration that only those who nearly die and survive know. At that sa instant, the air beside the armchair shimred. The Engineer's hologram materialized—a robust figure, a gray lab coat stained with virtual grease, safety glasses pushed up over his forehead. He crossed his chanical arms, projecting a worker's posture that Erick had programd on purpose: practical, direct, without frills.
"Sir! Thanks to the confrontation you had, we were able to achieve so results."
The Engineer raised a hand, and the holograms of the fight froze. Overlapping graphs appeared: red lines marking the degree of damage to the E-10 armor, percentages of plastic deformation, points of molecular rupture. Erick watched the numbers dance—87% integrity lost in the chest, 94% in the left arm, fissures that even compromised the energy core.
"Thanks to this confrontation, you allowed us to find the limit that the E-10 armor can reach."
Erick nodded slowly, his hand rising to his chin. He had expected this, but hearing it aloud still stung like a knife.
"Yes. You, Morgana, now have the job of developing a new league."
"Certainly, sir."
Erick tilted his head, moving on to the next point.
"And what can you tell about the energy source?"
The Engineer designed another graph: a discharge curve of the radioactive battery that powered the Titan armor. Stable green lines, but with dangerous peaks.
"The energy has proven to be extrely stable; apparently, the radioactive battery I managed to develop has perford its function well. However, I must assure you that everything is working with nuclear energy, and it is still extrely scalable."
Erick felt his fist clench. He punched the armchair in frustration, the synthetic leather absorbing the impact with a dull thud.
"That's our biggest problem."
The voice ca out hoarse, heavy with years of planning that always ran into the sa wall.
"We don't have a stable and secure energy source yet. And every ti we try to find a way, we hit a wall. The radioactive battery, however temporary it may be, won't last very long. We need to prioritize this; we need to develop sothing new."
The Engineer remained silent for a second, respecting the mont. Erick took a deep breath, forcing his mind to refocus. Project Mantle did not allow for self-pity.
"Forget about that for now. I'll try to think of sothing. You shift the focus to creating new tal. The armor withstood Lobo for minutes. And actually, his fight with Lobo only lasted a few minutes, not more than twenty. I need sothing really tough."
The engineer nodded, his glasses gleaming.
"Great. Cleared for now."
The hologram flickered and disappeared. Erick was left alone with the loops of the fight. He watched again, in slow motion, the mont his strongest punch—reinforced by Venom A, plasma, and elental fire—hit Lobo's jaw. The gray skin barely reddened. The Czarnian laughed. And laughed. Erick felt the frustration rise like bile. All those years in the basent, all the patents, all the sleepless nights forging alloys and coding AIs… and yet, the monster had treated him like an insect. He saw his own body hurled against a stone wall, the Titan armor cracking, blood gushing from his mouth. He saw Artemis screaming his na in the distance, too late. He saw his family waiting at Hargrove Manor, Sara playing with Baymax, parents confident in the safety he had promised.
Anger was fuel. But now it needed to be channeled.
He snapped his fingers.
The Doctor's hologram materialized in front of him, impeccably dressed in a white lab coat, his posture slightly inclined as always.
"Sir, how can I help?"
Erick was direct.
"How is the DNA analysis of Lobo going?"
The doctor smiled that programd smile of clinical excitent.
"That's impressive, sir. The DNA obtained by the Baymax robot."
The Doctor's hologram dissolved for an instant, giving way to a first-person recording: Baymax's eyes during the chaos. Erick saw Lobo's claws tearing through the armor, saw his own body being used as a weapon, saw the mont Baymax managed to scrape a sample of the Czarnian's blood and skin before being crushed. The screen froze on a molecular sequence—twisted helices, genetic sequences that looked more like machine than life.
"The DNA we obtained from this impressive breed may help unlock a few things, sir."
Erick leaned forward, his eyes shining.
"Excellent. Any unforeseen obstacles?"
The doctor gestured, and the graphs expanded.
"Well, it's an extrely strange DNA. It allows Lobo's race, from what we've been able to see, to have a high degree of regeneration. A very high physical level. We don't know if he's a mutant individual of his race, especially since he's the last one, or if it's sothing more. But I'm already working on it."
Erick nodded, satisfied. Czarnian regeneration. If only you could replicate even a fraction of that…
"Very well. And the super-soldier serum, what can you tell about it?"
The doctor designed a new series of diagrams: virtual vials, compatibility rates, stability curves.
"I thought that, due to his biological change, we would have to make so kind of alteration to the serum, but not as much as I would have liked. His DNA apparently proved to be even more receptive to the serum, allowing the chance of success at this point to increase sharply. We are still in the testing phase to see how it is going, but we have had a great number of improvents."
Erick smiled—a cold, calculating smile, but one filled with genuine victory. Martian blood wasn't just telepathy and morphology. It was a blessing that opened doors he didn't even know existed.
"Well, what else can you tell ?"
"Sir, I believe that in a few months or weeks I will have a stable serum. The changes in your DNA have truly been a blessing in disguise."
"Great. Thank you, doctor."
"You're welco, sir."
The hologram disappeared. Erick remained silent for long seconds, his chest rising and falling. The frustration of the fight still burned, but now mixed with the fire of possibility. He needed more. Always more. Absolute power was not a destination—it was an endless path.
He called the last mber of that brainstorming session, that brutal summary of the last few months.
"Natasha."
The air flickered again. The woman materialized with cold elegance. Black hair in a perfect Chanel cut, pale skin, eyes sharp as blades. She wore the classic maid's uniform—a tight black skirt, an impeccable white apron, sheer stockings—but her gaze was that of soone who commanded empires in the shadows. Natasha, the strategic intelligence and operations AI that Erick had coded to handle the human and logistical side of Project Cloak. She crossed her hands in front of her body, her posture impeccable.
"What do we have?"
Her voice was soft, but heavy with information. Erick leaned back in his armchair, allowing the holograms of the fight to continue spinning in the background as a constant reminder. He needed to hear everything. Every failure. Every small victory. Every path that still needed to be opened. Because Lobo was still out there, alive, enraged. Because Light was watching. Because the vacuum left by Black Mask attracted the Joker, the Penguin, worse threats. Because the family—Sara laughing with Baymax, confident parents in the Hargrove mansion, Artemis waiting with that mixture of love and longing—depended on him being stronger tomorrow than he had been yesterday.
And as the holograms danced, Erick felt the weight of each second. The elental fire in his chest pulsed in sync with the green psychic energy gan had helped awaken. The newly discovered arcane reserve humd like a promise. Martian DNA rewrote his cells. And now, with Lobo's DNA and the super-soldier serum on the horizon, the next step was drawing closer.
Project Mantle never stopped. It never would.
He looked at Natasha, awaiting the full report, his mind already mapping out the next twenty moves. Because in a world where gods flew and villains destroyed cities for fun, the man who had reincarnated as a baby in Gotham would no longer be a victim.
He would be their nightmare.
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