Chapter 4: First Transmutation Success
Justin stood in his private lab at 3 AM on a Saturday, staring at a ten-foot circle he'd spent three hours drawing on the concrete floor.
It was perfect. Geometric precision that would've taken a professional artist days to achieve, rendered with chalk and silver paint mixed with his own blood. The symbols were alchemical, mathematical, other—ancient patterns the void had burned into his soul. He understood them the way he understood his own heartbeat.
This was going to hurt.
Three weeks had passed since the board purge. Hammer Industries was still reeling, but the bleeding had stopped. Maya had moved into a proper lab on the third floor and was already producing prototype prosthetics that made military contractors sit up and pay attention. AEGIS was learning at an exponential rate, its personality evolving in ways Justin found both fascinating and slightly concerning.
And Justin? Justin was done with half-measures.
Tony Stark built miracles in caves using scrap metal. If Justin wanted to compete—wanted to win—he needed to create things that shouldn't exist at all.
He arranged the materials carefully at the circle's center. High-grade titanium ingots, purchased through legitimate channels. Carbon nanotubes, synthesized in Hammer Industries' materials lab. Trace elements: tungsten, vanadium, chromium, molybdenum. And one other component, acquired through less savory means—a fragment of alien metal recovered from a Stark Industries weapons test.
The fragment was tiny, barely the size of a coin, but his Scientific Intuition screamed that it was perfect. Whatever this metal was, it had properties that Earth metallurgy couldn't replicate. Yet.
Justin took a breath. Centered himself. Then he stepped into the circle.
The transmutation circle activated the moment his foot crossed the boundary.
Light erupted from the chalk lines, brilliant and cold. The symbols began to rotate, three-dimensional shapes spinning through space that shouldn't exist. Justin felt the pull immediately—the circle reaching into him, drawing on his life force, his energy, his self to fuel the transformation.
It was agony.
His nerves caught fire. His muscles locked. He tasted copper and ozone and something else, something from the void that had no name in any human language. The geometric marks on his palms burned brighter, spreading up his forearms in intricate patterns that glowed beneath his skin.
The materials at the circle's center began to change.
Molecular bonds broke and reformed. Atoms rearranged themselves into impossible configurations. The titanium flowed like water, drawing in the carbon nanotubes, absorbing the trace elements. The alien metal fragment dissolved, its exotic properties distributing through the matrix.
Justin watched through tears of pain as the metal transformed. His Scientific Intuition analyzed every step, feeding him information even as his body screamed: Perfect molecular alignment. Crystal lattice forming. Energy conductivity increased by three hundred percent. Structural strength exceeding titanium by factor of three. Weight reduction forty-seven percent. This shouldn't be possible but it IS—
The light cut off.
Justin collapsed to his knees, gasping. The circle's glow faded to nothing. And sitting at its center, still warm to the touch, was a bar of metal that gleamed with an inner light.
Prometheus Steel.
He'd done it.
Justin crawled forward—actually crawled, his legs refusing to work properly—and touched the metal. It was alive somehow, humming with potential. He could feel its properties through his Scientific Intuition: stronger than anything Hammer Industries had ever produced, lighter than aluminum, with energy conductivity that would make it perfect for powered armor applications.
This was his answer to Tony Stark's arc reactor. Not the same solution, but something that would enable different possibilities.
He dragged himself to his feet using a workbench for support. His hands were shaking. The void marks on his arms were clearly visible now, no longer just faint lines but distinct geometric patterns that glowed softly in the lab's dim light.
The cost was written on his skin.
Justin looked at his reflection in a darkened computer monitor. He looked like he'd aged five years. Dark circles under his eyes. Hollow cheeks. The marks crawling up his forearms like living tattoos.
"Worth it," he whispered.
Because it was. Every ounce of pain, every year he might have shaved off his life—worth it for the bar of impossible metal that sat cooling in his transmutation circle.
Tony Stark could build miniature arc reactors. Justin could build materials that didn't exist in nature.
Let's see who wins.
Maya arrived at her lab Monday morning to find a metal sample waiting on her workbench.
No note. No explanation. Just a six-inch bar of something that looked like polished steel but felt wrong when she picked it up—too light, too warm, too perfect.
She ran it through the materials analyzer.
The readings made no sense. The computer kept returning error messages, insisting that the molecular structure it was detecting couldn't exist. Maya ran the test again. Same results.
"Where the hell did this come from?" she muttered.
Her lab door opened. Justin walked in, moving carefully like his muscles ached. He looked worse than he had last week—thinner, paler, with dark circles under his eyes that suggested he wasn't sleeping.
"Do you like it?" he asked.
Maya held up the metal bar. "What is this?"
"Prometheus Steel. Three times stronger than titanium, half the weight, excellent energy conductivity. Perfect for your prosthetics work."
"That's impossible."
"And yet." Justin gestured to the sample. "There it is."
Maya set the metal down and faced him directly. "Where did this come from? And don't tell me 'private research.' I've analyzed every materials company in the world. Nobody can produce anything like this. The molecular structure alone would require—" She stopped. "You made this."
"Yes."
"How?"
Justin was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I have methods I can't explain. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I know that's frustrating. But I need you to trust me."
"You're asking for a lot of trust."
"I know." He met her eyes. "I can give you results. Proof. Every material I produce will be functional, tested, reproducible within tolerance ranges. What I can't give you is the how. Not the complete how."
Maya studied him. The man standing in her lab wasn't the Justin Hammer she'd heard about—the incompetent playboy who'd run Hammer Industries into the ground through ego and laziness. This was someone else entirely. Someone driven. Someone dangerous.
"The prosthetics I could build with this," she said slowly. "They'd be revolutionary. Better than anything on the market. Better than the Winter Soldier's arm, if the specs are accurate."
"They are."
"And you want me to use this. To build exoskeletons, powered armor, all the things you mentioned when you promoted me."
"Yes."
"Without asking questions about your 'unique methods.'"
Justin nodded.
Maya looked at the metal sample. Looked at Justin. Made a decision.
"I can work with that," she said. "For now."
"Thank you."
"But Justin?" She kept her voice level. "Eventually, I'm going to want answers. Real ones."
"When I can give them, I will." He turned to leave, then paused. "The prosthetics project. How long until you have a functional prototype using Prometheus Steel?"
"With this? Six weeks. Maybe less."
"Make it four. The world's about to get strange, Maya. We need to be ready."
He left before she could ask what that meant.
Maya picked up the metal sample again, feeling its impossible weight. Her mind was already racing ahead, designing servo systems and neural interfaces optimized for this new material.
She had so many questions.
But she also had work to do.
That night, Justin sat in his penthouse office and composed a message.
It took three hours and seven drafts. Getting the tone right was critical—too aggressive and Vanko would ignore it, too weak and he'd dismiss it as manipulation.
Finally, he had something that might work:
Dr. Vanko,
Your father's work on arc reactor technology was revolutionary. Howard Stark's theft of that legacy was criminal. Anton Vanko deserved recognition he never received.
I understand your desire to confront the son for the father's sins. But consider: Tony Stark is a symptom, not the disease. The system that allowed your father to be discarded is the real enemy.
I propose an alternative. Work with me. Build something better than anything Stark Industries has produced. Prove your father's genius not through destruction, but through creation that surpasses everything the Starks have achieved.
Resources, equipment, funding—all available. The only condition: your work must be revolutionary.
There are better ways to honor a legacy than dying for it.
- A Friend
Justin attached it to an encrypted message routed through six proxy servers, each in a different country. His newly-established Ghost Network—a collection of financially desperate analysts and retired intelligence officers—had tracked Vanko to a Moscow apartment where he was slowly building arc reactor prototypes from salvaged parts.
In the original timeline, Vanko would attack Tony at Monaco. Would nearly kill him. Would then partner with the original Hammer in a desperate alliance that ended with Vanko in prison and Hammer's reputation destroyed.
Not this time.
Justin sent the message and leaned back in his chair.
His arms ached. The void marks were spreading, now visible up to his elbows even when he wasn't actively transmuting. He could feel the corruption in his cells, a slow poison that his Scientific Intuition calculated would reach dangerous levels in another year or two.
But he had time. Enough time to build what he needed. Enough time to recruit the people who could help him survive what was coming.
Outside, Manhattan slept. Somewhere in that city, Tony Stark was probably working in his private lab, building the next generation of Stark Industries weapons. Completely unaware that in three months, terrorists would kidnap him. That he'd build Iron Man in a cave. That everything would change.
Justin smiled at his reflection in the dark window.
The void had given him powers. Knowledge. A second chance.
He was going to use all three to build something that would make the entire world notice.
Iron Man was coming. The Chitauri were coming. Thanos was coming.
And Justin Hammer—the new Justin Hammer—would be ready for all of them.
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