The announcement echoed across the arena, official and final. Tony Stark had won the match. The upset victory should have triggered immediate celebration, analysis, commentary.
Instead, an uneasy silence settled over the spectator sections.
Tony didn't linger on the damaged arena floor. His repulsors fired weakly—power reserves critically low—but carried him back to his designated section. The Mark 42's systems threw warnings across his HUD with every movement, damage assessments painting an increasingly dire picture.
But the crowd's attention had shifted away from him entirely. Thousands of eyes focused on the motionless figure beyond the arena's boundary.
Thena stood exactly where she'd landed, rigid as a statue. Her arms remained locked at her sides, her eyes still showing only whites. She hadn't moved. Hadn't blinked. Gave no indication she even knew the match had ended.
Darcy Lewis leaned forward in her seat, her usual irreverence replaced by genuine concern. "What's wrong with Thena? The match is over. Why is she still just... standing there?"
Thor's gaze tracked across the distance to where the Eternal remained frozen. His experience with various ailments—magical curses, cosmic afflictions, dimensional distortions—gave him broader context than most mortals possessed.
"Something's wrong with her," he said quietly. "She didn't lose to Tony intentionally. Some condition we don't understand has seized her."
Jane Foster nodded slowly, her analytical mind processing the evidence. The close-up camera feeds had shown Thena's wrist injuries—visible cracks in her cosmic armor from blocking Tony's unibeam. But in the final moments before her paralysis, those same injuries had vanished. Healed completely, as if they'd never existed.
Whatever affected her, it wasn't physical damage. This was something else entirely.
In the Eternals' section, Kingo's fingers drummed against his armrest with uncharacteristic nervousness. "What do we do now?"
Gilgamesh's massive frame seemed to settle with the weight of difficult decisions. "Two options. First—we do nothing. Don't approach her. Don't touch her. Let the Mahd Wy'ry run its course and hope she recovers naturally."
His jaw tightened. "Second option—I go out there and knock her unconscious. Carry her back here where we can treat her properly."
The other Eternals exchanged glances. Ikaris's expression showed clear preference for the second option—direct action, immediate resolution. But Sprite shook her head slightly, and even Druig looked uncomfortable with the prospect.
Knocking Thena unconscious in front of thousands of witnesses? Carrying her away like cargo? The optics were terrible. It would raise questions they weren't prepared to answer about Eternal physiology, about their weaknesses, about the very existence of Mahd Wy'ry.
Ajak, their leader for seven millennia, spoke with quiet authority. "Sersi, go speak with the host. Explain that Thena requires medical assessment but no physical contact for the next thirty minutes. Request they prevent others from approaching her."
Her golden eyes shifted to Gilgamesh. "If she hasn't recovered by then, you retrieve her. Gently, but decisively."
Everyone nodded. Sersi rose from her seat with fluid grace and made her way toward Eddie Brock's position near the announcer's platform.
Eddie listened to Sersi's explanation with Venom providing real-time threat assessment in his mind. The symbiote could sense the cosmic energy radiating from the Eternal woman, recognized power that exceeded even their combined capabilities.
"I'll relay this to the boss," Eddie said simply.
He found Smith Doyle supervising the Baymax robots as they repaired the damaged arena section. The message was conveyed in brief, professional terms—Thena required thirty minutes of undisturbed recovery time. Medical condition. No interference needed or desired.
Smith considered the request for perhaps three seconds before nodding. His ki sense had already told him everything he needed to know about Thena's condition. Mahd Wy'ry wasn't life-threatening in the short term, and the Eternals clearly had protocols for managing it.
"Granted," he said. "The Baymax units will maintain a perimeter. No one approaches her."
Throughout the spectator sections, conversations built and swirled like eddies in a stream. People speculated about Thena's condition with varying degrees of accuracy. Medical emergency. Psychic attack. Some kind of suspended animation. A few cynical voices still muttered about match-fixing, but those theories gained little traction.
The organizers' lack of urgency suggested they understood the situation. If it were truly dangerous, surely they'd intervene?
Tony Stark collapsed into his seat beside Happy Hogan with less grace than usual. The armor's servo-assistance had degraded to the point where sitting required conscious effort to avoid simply falling.
Happy already had the reinforced briefcase open, Tony's spare arc reactor gleaming inside its protective foam housing. "You look like hell, boss."
"Feel worse." Tony's faceplate retracted, revealing sweat-plastered hair and a face drawn with exhaustion. "Reactor. Now."
The replacement process took ninety seconds. Tony's fingers moved with practiced efficiency despite their trembling—detach the depleted unit, slot in the fresh one, feel the surge of new power flooding through the armor's systems. The HUD brightened immediately as energy returned to nominal levels.
But the structural damage? That remained.
"JARVIS, give me the full damage assessment."
The AI complied, projecting a three-dimensional wireframe of the Mark 42 across Tony's HUD. Large sections glowed angry red—critical damage requiring immediate repair. Yellow indicated compromised but functional systems. Only scattered patches of green remained.
"Sir, current weapons inventory is as follows: chaff dispensers operational, flares operational, wrist-mounted lasers at seventy percent capacity, two armor-piercing high-explosive rounds remaining in forearm launchers."
JARVIS paused, and if an AI could sound apologetic, his next words achieved it. "All micro-missile pods are depleted. The Zeus rotary cannon has been jettisoned and is non-recoverable. Shoulder-mounted systems are offline due to structural damage. Your remaining offensive capabilities are limited to repulsors and the chest-mounted unibeam, both dependent on arc reactor power."
Tony's jaw clenched. He'd thrown everything at Thena and barely managed victory through a technicality. Now he faced Xu Wenwu—a thousand-year-old warlord who'd tanked Thor's divine lightning and emerged looking annoyed rather than injured.
His attacks hadn't even scratched Xu Wenwu's energy shields in their first match. The Mark 21's weapons had been systematically dismantled by those ten rings, torn apart like tissue paper. The Mark 42's superior armor had survived, but survival wasn't victory.
And the tournament rules meant he'd have to beat Xu Wenwu three times to claim the championship.
The mathematics were brutal. Even if—through some miracle, some perfect combination of tactics and luck—he managed to win once, what then? Xu Wenwu would adapt. Would know his capabilities. Would counter whatever strategy had worked the first time.
Two more victories after that? Impossible.
Unless he changed the game entirely.
"JARVIS, deploy the Mark 40 from orbital storage."
"Acknowledged, sir. Initiating descent sequence from Seraph satellite."
Tony's mind was already moving to the next problem. He needed to speak with Smith. Needed to propose something that violated every principle of fair competition but might—might—give him a fighting chance.
Karl Mordo watched the Baymax robots work with professional interest. The androids moved with balletic precision, welding and shaping and polishing until no evidence of the explosion remained.
But the actual competition? That was effectively over.
Anyone with tactical sense could see the writing on the wall. Tony Stark versus Xu Wenwu, best of three, with Tony already damaged and depleted while Xu Wenwu remained fresh? Unless lightning struck twice—unless Xu Wenwu suffered the same mysterious paralysis that had claimed Thena—the outcome was inevitable.
Three matches. Three defeats. Mathematical certainty.
Mordo almost felt sympathy for Stark. Almost.
In the Ten Rings section, Xialing practically vibrated with excitement. "Father, your next opponent is Tony Stark. Three more victories and we win the championship!"
Shang-Chi's expression carried more measured assessment. "Three matches give him time to adapt. I'd bet money he changes armor between rounds. Probably has an entire arsenal stored somewhere."
Xu Wenwu's face showed the patient satisfaction of someone who'd planned for exactly this scenario. Over a thousand years, he'd learned that rushed victories often became pyrrhic defeats. Accidents happened. Variables emerged. Overconfidence killed.
"More matches is good," he said, his tone carrying the weight of centuries. "Steady progress. Multiple opportunities to secure victory. Even if something unexpected happens in one match, I have redundancy built into the system."
His fingers traced idle patterns on his armrest, rings humming softly. "I've won four Dragon Ball coins. Tony has three. If we settled everything in a single match, I'd be risking my entire advantage on one outcome. One mistake. One unpredictable variable."
He'd lived too long to make that kind of amateur error. Multiple matches meant multiple chances to win. Room for tactical adjustment. Protection against catastrophic single-point failure.
Victory through superior risk management. The way wars were actually won.
Tony Stark had reached the exact opposite conclusion through the exact same logical chain.
One match. Everything on the line. All or nothing.
It was insane. Reckless. Violated every principle of strategic competition. But it was also his only realistic path to victory.
He couldn't beat Xu Wenwu four times. Probably couldn't beat him twice. Maybe—with perfect execution, optimal conditions, and a generous helping of luck—he could win once.
So make that single victory count for everything.
Tony pushed himself out of his seat, servos whining protest, and made his way toward where Smith Doyle stood supervising the arena repairs.
"Smith," Tony called out, "I have an idea."
Smith turned, one eyebrow raised in inquiry. "What kind of idea?"
"I want to propose a winner-take-all match. One fight decides who gets the remaining Dragon Ball coins. No extended series. Just... one decisive battle."
Tony's tone carried forced casualness, like he was suggesting a minor rule modification instead of a complete structural overhaul. "You can't seriously expect Xu Wenwu and me to just... keep fighting until one of us wins three times. That's going to take forever."
Smith studied Tony's face for a long moment, reading the desperation poorly hidden beneath bravado. His lips quirked into something that might have been amusement or sympathy.
"In principle," Smith said slowly, "I agree with your proposal. After all, it would be somewhat embarrassing to watch you lose three consecutive matches."
Tony's expression flickered. "Hey, who says I'm losing three straight? I could take two out of three. Statistically possible."
Smith's smile widened. "As long as you have confidence."
Tony had activated his scouter during the earlier matches, watching the readings climb and climb and climb when measuring Xu Wenwu before the device simply gave up and displayed an error message. The commercial Scouter v2 maxed out at power level 500. Xu Wenwu exceeded that ceiling.
Smith Doyle's own scouter—the original system-granted device with no upper limit—had clocked Xu Wenwu's actual power. And Smith knew that if he wanted to guarantee victory against the Ten Rings leader, he'd need to access his Great Ape transformation. Twenty times power multiplication. Total overkill, but certain.
Tony didn't have that option. His Mark series armors, impressive as they were, operated in a completely different category. Unless he somehow acquired an Infinity Stone and integrated it into the suit design...
But Tony was speaking again, pulling Smith's attention back to the present.
"So, do you think my proposal is feasible?"
Smith considered the question seriously. "It would require Xu Wenwu's consent. Changing the rules mid-tournament to his disadvantage isn't something I can impose unilaterally. He earned his four Dragon Ball coins through legitimate victories. I can't just... take away his strategic advantage because his next opponent wants a shortcut."
Tony shrugged, the gesture stiff from armor damage. "Then ask him when we step into the ring. If he agrees, we settle everything with one match—three Dragon Ball coins to the winner. If he doesn't agree, we proceed according to standard rules."
He paused, then added with forced levity, "Though if we do it that way, don't expect this to be decided quickly. I've got contingencies. Plans. At least two more armor variants ready for deployment."
The implication was clear: I'm not going down without a fight, even if the fight takes all day