“This is epic,” Iron Man said. “As in, biblical.”
Abe Jenkins, hidden behind his red and gold Iron Man defensive armor, watched in astonishment as his direct uplink to the Stark/Fujikawa network scrolled across his heads-up display. What he was witnessing would change the world.
Within mere moments the entire online infrastructure of Stark/Fujikawa’s mainframes had been severely upgraded. Terrabytes of information had been crammed into their systems, and when they were filled to capacity by software upgrades, the nanostream had been crosslinked to physically change their databanks.
Stark/Fujikawa was now in possession of other-dimensional technology, unlike anything the Earth had seen before. 3D realtime-holographic interfaces had replaced simple computer monitors. Network nodes had been turned into repositories capable of transferring entire drives instead of simply linking them. Keyboards had been transformed before the naked eye into body-capture inputs.
It was straight out of a science fiction movie, and it had all happened because of Abe.
A lumbering brute in gray Iron Man armor clapped a gauntlet-covered hand on Abe’s back. “You have taken the first step, my friend,” Ironheart said heartily. “Once the world has the chance to review our Citadel technology they will soon allow us access to their governments. They will see that our intentions are noble and the troubles of our collective worlds will never be felt by your own. You are to be praised!”
Abe nodded in response as he continued to keep an eye on his HUD. It would take Rhodey’s R&D teams decades to reverse engineer some of the tech he was looking at. He couldn’t wait to get his own fingers sticky, he had to admit. The sprockets in his mind were turning furiously as he imagined the upgrades he could give his own refurbished armor.
“It’s going to take some time before they allow us that kind of access, Iron Man 767,” another armored figure, Iron Woman, said to Ironheart. “We’ll be playing the waiting game for a little bit while Abner’s contacts sift through the miracles we just handed over.”
Beside Abe, the red and black armored Iron Man 213 removed his helmet, revealing the unmistakable face of Tony Stark. While Abe had gotten used to seeing a dead man’s face plastered on every person onboard the Citadel it still made him do a double-take.
“I’d say that waiting is the hard part,” he said to Abe, “but it’s going to be clear sailing from here. Getting even one person to accept us was the real task.”
“He speaks from experience,” Iron Woman commented. “Before we had certain protocols established the hardest part was not getting attacked on sight. Once we had MODOKs swarming the Citadel right after we—”
A nearly silent audible chirp on the console in front of Iron Woman caught her attention. She tilted her head to look at the console interface and swapped through several options, sifting through the alert information.
“How did…” she muttered. Her head shot back up and looked directly at Abe, then she turned to Lord Iron and Ironheart. “We have a problem.”
“Words I seldom enjoy hearing,” Lord Iron responded as his hand drifted to the top of his lightning bottle.
“The engine has been comprised,” Iron Woman stated. “Someone hacked the operations hub, changed the interface encoding, and broadcast the new sequence to somewhere in Japan. We’ve lost control completely.”
“What?” Ironheart exclaimed.
“Such a feat would have to be undertaken onboard the ship,” Lord Iron replied. “The interface is close-circuit. It would be impossible for someone to hack into the engine without physically being in front of it.”
Iron Woman’s gauntlets began to glow as her repulsors hummed to life. “Exactly,” she said. “The system marked the signature of the armor being worn by the person who did it. I don’t know how, but our friend Abner here just betrayed us.”
Beneath his helmet, Abe’s eye’s widened. “Uh…come again?” he murmured.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
IRON MAN
Issue #16 written by D. Golightly
“The New Iron Age – Part Four of Five”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Dude. Dude! Wake up!”
Patriot sat up suddenly, although he could barely see where he was in the darkness. He could tell that it was a small room, sealed off all around them, and that he was still in the company of his fellow Young Avengers, Asgardian and Iron Lad.
He rubbed his forehead with one hand and smacked away Asgardian with the other. “Stop shaking me,” he muttered. The cobwebs in his head were still clinging to his brain. “What happened? Where are we?”
“Inside the engine,” Iron Lad calmly replied. “Or one of the turbines, at the very least. The…Iron Maniac, as he called himself, took us down like amateurs and locked us away in here.”
“So?” Patriot tried to stand up but the chamber was too small. He hunched over and stared at his compatriots. “Repuslor the hatch open or something.”
Iron Lad shook his head. “He did something to shut my systems down. I can barely move. I’m trapped inside my own armor.”
Patriot looked to Asgardian, who threw up his hands defensively. “Don’t look at me,” he said. “That fruitcake tossed my staff outside, along with your shield. No staff, no lightning, no magic.”
Patriot glanced at the floor and then felt his back where he normally strapped his pointed, multi-colored shield. It was gone. They were trapped and defenseless, and they had no idea why. All they knew was that the engine’s energy signature had thrown their time-jump off course, and when they had come to investigate, the Iron Maniac had attacked and locked them away. On top of that, they knew the Mandarin was somehow involved.
“That’s just great. Do you have any idea how much trust was placed in me to keep that shield safe? My uncle is going to kill me.”
“We have larger problems at the moment,” Iron Lad said. “The Iron Maniac broadcast some sort of complex interweb transmission before he shut us in here. It went somewhere in Japan, but I wasn’t able to lock down an exact location.”
Patriot smirked. “You’re practically useless.” The sarcasm was evident enough in his voice that he didn’t have to worry about offending his teammate.
Asgardian elbowed Iron Lad. “Tell him the cool part,” the youngest of their number said.
“I wouldn’t say I’m totally useless,” Iron Lad responded. “I managed to triple-encrypt his broadcast before he locked me in my armor. The Mandarin, if that’s who he was broadcasting to, is going to be really irritated when he finishes downloading whatever was sent to him.”
“So we’ve got some time before stuff goes down?”
Iron Lad nodded at Patriot. “Not much, but we’ve got some time.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Abe took a few steps back toward the rear of the Citadel’s bridge. The nearly dozen Iron Men around him were all focused entirely on his movements. “Hold on a second,” he said. “There’s been a mistake.”
“Are you sure about this?” Lord Iron asked Iron Woman.
“The logs confirm it,” she replied. “Abner somehow hacked us. Maybe he’d like to tell us why.”
SSSSHING!
Metal scraped against metal as Ironheart withdrew his long sword from where it magnetically rested on his back. He flipped a switch at the base and the blade began to glow blue as repulsor energy filled the blade. He hefted it over his head and issued his ultimatum: “Power your armor down, friend, or have it forcibly removed from you.”
“Listen, I don’t understand what’s going on here, but I—”
Ironheart bellowed a cry of intent as he lunged forward, slashing the blazing sword down at Abe. He jumped back to avoid the strike, barely getting out of the way in time. The blue streak of light from the sword hung in the air in front of him for a split second, and in that split second all hell broke loose.
Lord Iron unleashed his bottled lightning, directing it at Abe. Arcs of cobalt energy lashed at him, but Abe managed to throw up his second-skin shielding just in time to deflect the attack. Electricity scattered over the wall and consoles of the bridge, shorting out systems left and right.
Abe ground his teeth and regretfully opened the irises in the palms of his gauntlets. His own repulsors, charged to the brim by the cosmic cube powering his armor, were more than twice as strong as any of the others. He extended his hands in two directions and the concussive force lancing from his gauntlets shoved both Ironheart and Lord Iron across the bridge.
He knew that returning fire would only make him look guiltier, which to him was ridiculous because he didn’t know what he was being accused of, but he had no choice. Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, he leapt into action.
Iron Woman let loose her uni-beam, which Abe ducked under, causing it to slice into the console and displays behind him. To the far right Iron Man 213 and several other armored individuals he hadn’t gotten to know yet were charging their own uni-beams. He had to get out of such close quarters and find some cover.
Of course, simply running away wouldn’t solve his problem either. Obviously he had been set up and had to discover his unseen assailant before the entire army of Iron Men came down on him.
Flipping on his anti-grav engine and kicking up the throttle on his boot jets, Abe made a beeline for the bridge exit. He barreled over two other armored figures, scraping by them with barely enough room to maneuver properly within the confined quarters.
He heard one of the Starks behind him in the bridge issue a ship-wide alert and the hallways he flew through were filled with a blinking red light, accompanied by a klaxon alarm. He wasn’t sure just how many Iron Men were on board the Citadel, but he realized that he was probably about to find out. The faster he could clear his name, the better.
During his initial tour of the ship he had been taken through the massive engine room. The repulsor technology that allowed the incredible ship to traverse dimensions had been taken to the next several levels, instilling the ability to push away from entire dimensions. Not only did it provide local propulsion, but it could safely jump between planes of reality.
The nexgen engine was what Iron Woman had accused him of tampering with, so that was where he would start looking for answers. Also during the tour Iron Man 213 had shown him their system for keeping track of who was where. Since everyone on board was an alternate version of Tony Stark, they kept track of each individual’s unique armor configuration. Iron Woman had said that his armor had been scanned in the engine room, marking him as the culprit.
Only he hadn’t been back there since his initial visit. Someone on board was certainly a traitor, but it wasn’t him. Someone had set him up, and judging from the stance of the two Iron Men coming up in the corridor ahead of him, it had worked like a charm.
One of the armored figures sported a green and yellow armor that reminded Abe of the short stint he did in the Vault, a superhuman penitentiary center, where all the guards wore had a similar color scheme. His partner had a patchwork quilt of armor, with thinner modular pieces of mismatched colors blended together as if he had scavenged the armor from several sources.
Four arms with four fists, all belonging to the pair of Iron Men, rose to point at him. He could see the irises inside each palm begin to open as repulsor energy spilled out. His second-skin force field wouldn’t be enough to take an assault like that.
When he had designed his new armor, which had been a necessity after Justin Hammer had gotten through with him, he had incorporated several new items into his arsenal. He was an engineer at heart, after all, and tinkering with Tony Stark’s original design had been more fun than he had imagined. He hadn’t field tested everything yet, but the present circumstances would have to due as far as a dry run was concerned.
Two slats unlatched from his shoulders, sliding up into position beside his neck. The targeting computer on his HUD tracked the palms of both Iron Men, locking their positions with red crosshairs. A split second later, micro-missiles launched from his shoulders.
The tiny warheads on the tips of the missiles collided with the awaiting repulsor beam generators and were instantly covered with a viscous, thick fluid that hardened on impact. The small lenses imbedded in their palms were coated completely, sealing away the dangerous repulsor energy.
Abe had wanted to incorporate more weaponry into his arsenal, but maintain its non-lethality. The sticky fluid had been based on some old files of Stark’s, but he had seemed to have trouble with the chemical composition once the container had been breached and exposed to air. With a bit of tinkering, and a few notes from Stark/Fujikawa’s research department, Abe had fixed the problem and even improved on it. The delivery system was nothing special, but he had been able to condense the fluid enough pre-exposure to ensure that upon impact it would expand to the necessary proportions.
The pair of Iron Men were befuddled and their repulsors were useless. The green and yellow one angled a shoulder mounted cannon at him, but Abe was moving too fast for him to track and return fire at this point. He fired a shot and it went wide, easily missing Abe by three feet.
Iron Man took advantage of their surprise, rocketing between them and clipping the side of each of them to knock them down. He turned up the throttle as far as he dared within close confines and hurried down the corridor before more Iron Men could come after him.
He punched through the closed doorway that led to the elevator shaft that ran through the center of the Citadel. Angling himself upward, Iron Man shot up the shaft like a rocket. Doors to the other decks blurred by as he rose through the massive spacecraft.
He reached the appropriate level and stopped suddenly. He pulled back his fist, punched into the crack between the two doors, and ripped them open. He prepared his defenses for another onslaught of repulsor fire, or worse, and charged his own weapons to retaliate. There was a constant watch team in place around the engine to ensure that energy spikes didn’t disrupt the delicate structure, which could result in an accident bad enough to wipe out the eastern seaboard. There was no doubt in his mind that a dozen Iron Men would be waiting to wipe the floor with him. His targeting computer zipped across his visor, locking in on…
…nothing.
He gently floated into the engine room, supported by his anti-grav engine. His onboard systems busily scanned through the room, switching through different spectrums to try and locate a target. The room was completely empty and he was apparently alone.
“Okay, this is like a creepy movie,” he muttered to himself.
The huge, lumbering engine churned away, generating the power necessary to move between dimensions. Stacks of wide, encircling rings ran up the length of the central pillar that comprised the engine, channeling the power into the side turbines. Rupture shields moved into place where it was necessary to contain an energy spike, although when Abe had been brought through before it had taken an entire crew to operate the shields appropriately. It looked as if someone had set the engine to run automatically.
He spotted the central console that operated the engine. Before he could move closer to investigate, his scanners finally picked up a trace energy signature that differed from the one being emitted from the engine turbines. Masked by the turbines themselves, the energy signature seemed to be coming from inside one of the turbines.
While the signature was present inside one turbine, it was strangely absent from the other. It was either an anomaly or a clue. Iron Man floated toward the top of the turbine, locating a compartment panel there. Shoving his gauntlet-covered fingers into the edges he ripped the panel back and was entranced by the last thing he ever expected to see: three teenage boys staring back at him, ready to fight.
“Stand down,” a bald black boy said to the other two teenagers. He wore red, white, and blue and looked like a Captain America wannabe. “It’s not him. This is…actually, I’m not sure who that is. Who are you?”
“Maybe he’s working with the other one,” a kid wearing a red cape and winged helmet commented. “Or he’s in disguise.”
“Disguised in a similar armor? What kind of sense does that make, Asgardian?”
Abe dropped the panel cover and hovered back a few feet, giving himself space during the confusion. “Who are you?” he asked.
“We asked you first,” Asgardian shot back.
“We don’t have time to argue,” the third teenager, wearing red and silver armor, responded. He looked like a younger, leaner version of Iron Man. “The longer we waste here the closer the Mandarin will get to deciphering my encryption.”
“Mandarin?” Abe tensed. The Mandarin was one of Tony Stark’s worst enemies, one that had openly attacked Abe just after he had made his public debut as Iron Man. He recalled what Iron Woman had said about a transmission to Japan. “Are you working for the Mandarin?”
“Hell no,” the black youth said. “Do we look like scumbag supervillains?”
“Listen, kid, I’m pretty much in the dark here. Enlighten me, won’t you?”
The armored teenager stepped in front of Asgardian, who had opened his mouth to reply with a sarcastic quip. “I’m Iron Lad,” he said. “This is Patriot and Asgardian. We’re the Young Avengers, and we’re from the future. I understand how bizarre and unbelievable that may sound—”
Iron Man raised a hand up nonchalantly. “No, that makes sense,” he replied. “What are you doing inside the engine?”
“Oh,” Iron Lad said, surprise lacing his voice. “Uh…we were trying to figure out exactly what was going on here when we were jumped by one of the armored crew members of this ship. He called himself the Iron Maniac. He locked down my armor, took away our weapons, and shoved us inside here right after he broadcast a signal planet side.”
Abe’s mind was reeling. There was a traitor on board the Citadel. Working with the Mandarin, no less. “Do you think you could—”
Ffff-WHAM!
Sizzling energy splashed against Iron Man’s back, knocking him against the turbine and then down to the floor. Smoke rose from his armor as it tried to absorb the heat of the attack. On his hands and knees, Abe glanced over his shoulder to see the black armor belonging to another Tony Stark hover down into view. The mouth of his helmet was elongated to create an eerie presence.
“Imagine my surprise when I discovered what the brat had done to my transmission,” the Iron Maniac said. “I’d commend him if I didn’t want to kill him. And now the local talent has seen fit to intercede. Can’t you just roll over like a good scapegoat?”
Abe managed to rise into a kneeling position. “You’re working for the Mandarin,” he accused. “Why?”
The enlarged chest-mounted uni-beam on the Iron Maniac’s armor blazed to life and energy engorged Iron Man. “Not for the Mandarin,” he shouted. “With him! We’re partners, you moronic dolt. After I’m a safe distance away from here he’ll cause the engine to go critical, allowing us to hold the world ransom and thus reshape it to our own devices.”
He spun to face the Young Avengers, who helplessly were forced to watch as Abe was tortured under the intense assault. “But that can’t happen until I get the encryption codes from our young friend here. Give them to me, boy.”
“Bite me,” Asgardian said.
“I wasn’t talking to you, whelp,” the Iron Maniac shot back. “But be patient. I’ll kill you in a moment. Maybe that will free up your armored friend’s concentration.”
“If you stand down now,” Patriot said, “we promise not to hurt you too much.”
The Iron Maniac let out a guffaw. “And what makes you think you could even hope to accomplish that little goal? I defeated you easily before, and that was when you had some type of offense.”
“Believe it or not, we’re still pretty offensive.” Patriot nodded down behind the Iron Maniac. “Besides, we don’t need weapons to distract you.”
The Iron Maniac paused, then followed Patriot’s line of site back down underneath him to see Iron Man unleash a dual dose of repulsor blasts against him. The cosmically fueled energy punched the Iron Maniac across the expansive engine room, sending him flying head over heels until his flight systems righted him.
“Move, Avengers!” Patriot called out.
The teenagers spilled out of the turbine as Iron Man flew into the air, driving his fists directly at the Iron Maniac. His armor was thicker than Abe’s, providing much more protection and allowing for more resistance to his punches. He barely managed to dent his chestplate before being knocked back by a punch of Iron Maniac’s.
Taking a different tactic, Abe ducked under the next swing and maneuvered behind the Iron Maniac, wrapping his arms underneath his opponent’s. He locked him into a choke hold and commanded his servo motors to not budge from that position.
“Why are you doing this?” Abe demanded. “I thought all you Starks were the same. Why betray your own kind like this?”
“Because of the sheer hypocrisy of it all! I couldn’t’ even try to explain it to you. I’m talking to a dead man, especially once the Mandarin gets through with you. He really hates you, do you know that?”
“I had an idea, yeah.”
Something colorful caught Abe’s attention from the corner of his eye. In an instant that something grew larger and larger as he realized it was an object spinning directly for them. He angled the Iron Maniac into position just before the object lodged its tip into the thick, black armor mere inches from the uni-beam lens.
Peering over the Iron Maniac’s shoulder Abe recognized it as a star-spangled shield, shaped like a pointed crest. Its edge was razor sharp and had sunk several inches into the Iron Maniac’s armor.
“Nailed it!” Patriot said gleefully from the floor of the engine room. “Next time you disarm someone and lock them away, maybe try to hide their weapons instead of leaving them lying around.”
“Yeah!” Asgardian chimed in. “Now suck on this!”
“Wait! Don’t!” Iron Lad reached a hand toward Asgardian, but his warning came too late.
The godly youth raised his seemingly normal staff of dried wood and slammed the bottom onto the ground. Lightning suddenly danced around him and lanced toward the Iron Maniac, wrapping him in its blue and white glow.
Unfortunately, Iron Man was still gripping him tightly, locked in place by his servo motors. The powerful electricity arced through his systems as well, and after a split second of extreme pain, the feedback shock broke his hold and the pair was forced apart.
Iron Man smashed into the side of the turbine and fell to the floor again. He glanced at Asgardian, who had a look on his face like he had just cost them the battle and despair was sinking in.
The Iron Maniac managed to move laterally so his feet pressed against the wall of the engine room. Kicking off of the wall with the aid of his boot jets, he righted himself immediately and set his targeting computer for all three of the teenagers.
With one swipe of his gauntlet he slapped the shield off of his chestplate. A small incision where the tip had punctured his armor was the worse damage he had to show from the battle, while the other four heroes were looking strained, battered and worried.
He focused his attention on Iron Lad. “Little boy, either give me the encryption key or I’ll simply rip your armor into pieces while you’re still in it and download what I need from the scraps.”
“You can try,” the youth replied.
Iron Man reset his HUD’s calibration and zoomed in his visor control to look at the Iron Maniac’s chestplate. His targeting computer centered exactly where he needed it to, and when the Iron Maniac screamed in irritation and defiance at Iron Lad’s remark, Iron Man launched his last ditch effort of defeating the crazed Tony Stark. All that could be seen was a small puff of steam from his gauntlet.
The Iron Maniac lunged for Iron Lad, who was still locked in his armor. Asgardian and Patriot ran to him, but they hadn’t moved more than a few feet before the Iron Maniac paused in midair and choked back his aggression.
His right arm contorted strangely and looked in shock at Iron Man. “What did you do to me?” he demanded.
“In a past life I used these little drones to scour places for me, searching for whatever I needed,” Abe responded. He stood up and brushed off the front of his armor, which was dented and scraped. “I just started using them again.* That little chink in your armor was all I needed to send one of my drones into your systems and totally ravage it.”
* [He used them to search for Felix Judd in IRON MAN #13 – D]
The Iron Maniac’s own HUD confirmed what Abe was telling him. A small microbot, no larger than an eraser, was busily gnawing through his internal systems. One by one his armor’s components were shutting down as the drone obliterated his armor from the inside out.
“No,” the Iron Maniac muttered. “No! I’ll…I’ll reroute power and adjust for—”
The once steady glow in the center of his uni-beam aperture died off, leaving his armor eerily dark. He wavered in midair for a moment before falling to the ground like a paperweight. He was now locked inside his own armor, only unlike Iron Lad, he couldn’t even move. The drone made sure to rip apart the servo motors, resulting in the Iron Maniac’s armor becoming nothing more than a cumbersome suit of metal.
The small drone popped back out of the chestplate incision and returned to Abe’s gauntlet. The tiny drill at the front of the drone was glowing red hot, but it hadn’t melted or dulled from overuse.
“That was pretty awesome,” Asgardian said as he and Patriot stepped closer to Abe. “Sorry about the whole electrocuting you thing. You know how it is.”
Iron Lad, who had moved to the engine control console, suddenly spoke up. “It’s not over yet! The engine core is getting an energy spike and we damaged one of the rupture shields during the brawl!” He manipulated the holographic interface, switching through the light displays with rapid understanding. “I…I don’t think I can compensate. This is bad. This is very bad.”
“Which one of the rupture shields needs put back in place?” Iron Man demanded as he leapt into the air and headed for the large engine.
“Third rung! It’s been knocked out of position!”
He slipped his hands underneath the large, flat, hovering rupture shield that hung lazily just outside the perimeter of the engine cylinder. Looking straight down into the engine from that height he could see the pulses of energy building, threatening to blow out the side of the casing.
He fired his boot jets and pressed against the rupture shield. He could see the building energy coming closer and closer. He had to get the shield in place before it was too late. The blue and white candescence of the inside of the engine was steadily increasing and the shield was barely moving an inch. At this pace he wasn’t going to make it in time.
“Easy, friend. You will have the aid you require.”
Abe looked to his right and saw the bulky, gray metal gauntlets of Ironheart press against the rupture shield beside his own. With the added strength of Ironheart’s armor, the shield suddenly slid into place just as the energy spike washed over it. The imminent danger had been contained as the spike dissipated back into the energy matrix of the huge engine.
Iron Man floated back and gently lowered to the ground. Ironheart fell into place in front of him, albeit much less gracefully. The sword was still magnetically attached to his back, but its deadly power was locked away and deactivated.
Behind him were another dozen armored figures; the Iron Men had closed on his position. Iron Woman, Lord Iron, and many others were all focused on him. Several had joined Iron Lad at the console and were busily working the controls.
Abe pointed at the fallen Iron Maniac. “You’ve got a fallen angel,” he said. “I don’t know what other damage he did to the ship, but you have to—”
“We unscrambled his hacking,” Iron Woman said as she approached to stand beside Ironheart. “We know he set you up. The video surveillance was recovered and we accessed the feed as you were fighting him. We saw everything.”
“Apologies,” Lord Iron said. He offered his hand to Abe.
Abe waved it off. “Not necessary. I would have thought the same thing. We don’t have time to sulk, anyway. The Mandarin will get control of your engine as soon as he decrypts the access codes.” He nodded to Iron Lad. “Kid…how much time did your encryption buy us?”
“A few hours at the most,” Iron Lad replied.
“Evil Stark over there said he and the Mandarin could destroy the world somehow using the engine. Is that possible?”
Iron Woman nodded. “Worse. If he manages to overload the engine then the dimensional gateway that the engine creates to transport us between worlds could become inverted.”
“And that would be bad because…”
“It would effectively create a black hole inside the ship. All life as we know it would be crushed down into a singularity. Nothing, not even light, would be able to escape.”
“Wow. Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty bad.” Iron Man glanced at the Young Avengers and the other Iron Men surrounding him. The large engine hummed behind them, pulsing with the power to destroy an entire galaxy. “We’ll have to work quickly then.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
NEXT ISSUE: The New Iron Age concludes! With the might of the Iron Man collective behind him, Abe takes the fight to Japan. Before the big blow-out he’ll have a quick stop to make as he tracks down the one man that can give him the edge over the Mandarin. The final showdown with the Mandarin, the destiny of the Young Avengers, the fate of Stark/Fujikawa, and when the dust settles one person will be forever changed!