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- New York City, United States of America -October 6, 1937 -
The autumn breeze carried the scent of roasted chestnuts and freshly inked newsprint. Morning papers flapped on city corners like flags of curiosity, their headlines bold and impossible to ignore. A young paperboy shouted through the cold misty air, his voice cracking with excitement.
"BREAKTHROUGH IN ENERGY FROM BHARAT – CLEAN POWER WITHOUT OIL OR COAL!"
"SAMRAT ARYAN STUNS THE WORLD AGAIN – IS THIS THE FUTURE?"
In the heart of Manhattan, behind tall glass windows of a modest office tower still smelling of fresh paint and ambition, Howard Stark lowered his copy of The New York Times. His coffee had gone cold.
He stared at the front page for a long while, rereading each line, each clue hidden between vague descriptions and speculative guesses. The actual mechanism of this "Prāṇa Fuel" remained undisclosed. Bharat had released only broad details—environmentally harvested energy, free of fossil fuel dependencies, silent generators that pulsed with something close to life itself. A poetic phrase, yet maddeningly precise in its confidence.
Stark's eyebrows drew together. "Damn it, Aryan…" he muttered, shaking his head with both disbelief and admiration. "You actually pulled it off."
He leaned back In his chair, the leather creaking under his sharp frame, and let the paper rest on his chest. The sunlight that filtered through the blinds caught on the photo of Aryan Rajvanshi printed beside the article.
The Image was recent—Aryan in his white kurta and shawl, standing atop the newly inaugurated Prāṇa Power Plant in Bombay, his hand raised in greeting, his expression calm and unreadable. Around him were crowds, engineers, ministers… and those strange, rune-marked towers humming gently in the background.
It all felt surreal.
Howard remembered the first time he met Aryan at Princeton, nearly five years ago. A boy barely taller than Howard's shoulder, with the brainpower of ten men. Quick-witted, unshakable, unnervingly polite. A boy who turned down his internship offer with the grace of a seasoned diplomat and the fire of a revolutionary.
"You don't understand, Howard," Aryan had said back then, with that calm intensity. "I'm here for knowledge. Not to sell it. I come from a land still in chains. If I do not go back and build for her, who will?"
Back then, Howard had chuckled, clapped his back and said, "You'll change the world either way, kid."
But he hadn't expected this.
A single year after his country's independence, Aryan Rajvanshi was no longer just a boy genius. He was Samrat. Emperor. Visionary. Engineer. Superhuman.
And now? Now he had built a sustainable, decentralized energy system—Prāṇa Fuel—that had reportedly already powered over a hundred towns across Bharat. No pollution. No dependence on imported oil. No corporate chains.
Howard's mind raced with questions.
Could this be adapted to aerospace engineering?
Could it power autonomous machines?
Was it based on electromagnetic resonance? Or something… more mysterious?
One paragraph had especially caught his attention. It described how the generators drew "environmental vitality" from their surroundings using embedded runes that cycled energy through layered crystal arrays. The newspaper likened it to how trees breathe or rivers flow.
No schematics, no patents released. And yet the world was already talking.
Howard rubbed his temples. "Either it's the most poetic nonsense ever written… or Aryan's built something that will change every blueprint we've ever drawn."
He stood up, walking toward his workbench. Bits of his stalled projects lay scattered—a prototype electric aircraft wing, a modular turbine, a half-built arc capacitor. So many ideas… all awaiting a breakthrough that never came.
Until now?
His mind sparked alive again. If Aryan was using natural atmospheric energy… there had to be a principle—scientific, even if cloaked in mysticism.
Howard walked back to his desk, yanked open a drawer, and pulled out a file marked "Rajvanshi Correspondence." It was thin—just two letters from their Princeton days, one photograph, and a list of lecture notes Aryan had shared with him once about energy harmonics and non-Newtonian field interactions. At the time, Howard had dismissed it as brilliant nonsense.
Now, he wasn't so sure.
He looked out the window at the sprawling city. Smog curled above the chimneys. Horns blared. The great American engine still ran on oil, fire, and coal.
He clenched his jaw. That's not the future anymore, is it?
Howard turned to his assistant, who had just stepped in with a telegram from London.
"Cancel the Boston conference," he said.
"Sir?"
"Book me a ticket to Bharat. First ship. I want to see Ujjain with my own eyes. And… contact their embassy. Tell them Howard Stark of Stark Industries would like to arrange a meeting with the Samrat—on behalf of international cooperation and emerging technology exchange."
His assistant blinked. "Sir… you think he'll actually meet you? He's the Emperor now."
Howard smirked, tossing the paper onto his desk, letting the face of Aryan look back up at him.
"Emperor or not, he's still an old acquaintance. And from what I know of him, Aryan doesn't turn away from good conversations. Especially not when it involves building something new."
He paused, then added with a touch of dry humour,
"And if that doesn't work, tell them I'll offer to build a Stark Industries research facility in Ujjain—jobs, infrastructure, the works. That'll at least get me a seat near the garden."
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Meanwhile, in Ujjain…
Aryan sat beneath the shade of a peepal tree in the Kamal Asthaan gardens. A report lay open in his hands—marked "International Reactions." The headlines from the world's newspapers were clippings sent by his External Affairs Bureau.
He read the American ones with a faint smile.
When he turned to the page with Howard Stark's picture posing besides his upcoming invention, Shakti, sitting nearby, noticed the shift in his expression.
"Howard Stark?" she asked.
Aryan nodded. "He's an old acquaintance, From what I know of his character, the moment he sees these reports, he'll be coming to Bharat as soon as he can."
She arched a brow, now amused. "To challenge you?"
Aryan chuckled softly. "No. To learn. To build. He always was too curious for his own good."
He folded the paper and looked out at the city stretching beyond the palace gardens. A city lit not by wires, but by whispered energy. Not by extraction, but harmony.
"Let him come," Aryan said.
"At least it will be interesting," he added , smiling mischievously.
The peepal leaves swayed gently in the wind—silent witnesses to a future already unfolding.
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- The White House, Washington D.C., US -
- October 7, 1937 -
The door to the Oval Office clicked shut with a heavy finality as the last of the President's advisors entered. A hush fell, despite the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner and the faint murmur of the world beyond those thick, soundproof walls.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt sat behind his desk, his expression thoughtful as he tapped the edge of a newly arrived intelligence dossier. The cover read in bold:
"CONFIDENTIAL – DEVELOPMENTS IN BHARAT: ENERGY, TECHNOLOGY, AND GEOPOLITICS."
He glanced at the men around him—Cabinet members, military officials, and key advisors. Each bore a different look: suspicion, anxiety, cautious optimism.
"We've all read it," Roosevelt began, his voice calm but firm. "Let's speak frankly."
General McAlister, always the first to speak his mind, leaned forward. "With all due respect, Mr. President—this man, Aryan Rajvanshi, is not just a head of state. He's a superhuman. A… mutant. The kind of individual we don't even fully understand. And now he leads one of the most populous nations in the world, armed with technology that, frankly, we can't even begin to replicate."
Another advisor muttered under his breath, "Feels like something out of a dime novel… or scripture."
Roosevelt nodded slowly but didn't interrupt. He let the discomfort settle.
Secretary Harold Ickes, a voice of reason in many difficult meetings, finally spoke. "Sir, the people of Bharat fully support him and when the constitution of Bharat is completed and elections are held, I'm a hundred percent sure based on my current knowledge that this man will be elected to power again—despite, or perhaps because of, his abilities. And frankly, Mr. President, the reports show he isn't a tyrant. He's modernizing the country. A constitutional monarchy with real civic institutions, an independent judiciary, even a free press. That's more than can be said of many so-called democracies right now."
A rustle of papers followed. The intelligence reports contained photos—shimmering towers of the Prāṇa Fuel generators, electric tramlines in Ujjain, maps of planned urban zones, clean water projects, even reports of rural electrification using that mysterious clean energy. The evidence was undeniable: something new was rising in Bharat.
But so too was unease.
Secretary of War Henry Woodring cleared his throat. "We can't ignore the elephant in the room. This isn't just about innovation. We're talking about a man who, by all accounts, shattered colonial chains in less than a year using powers and technology that border on supernatural. If he were in Europe, we'd be sounding alarms."
Roosevelt folded his hands and leaned forward.
"And yet," he said, "he isn't in Europe. He's in Bharat. A nation that, for centuries, was under British rule. A nation we've often failed to understand, and worse—failed to support when it mattered."
There was silence again.
Roosevelt looked toward the window. Rain streaked against the glass. The world was changing. Europe simmered with fascism. Hitler was rising. Mussolini had already marched. Japan loomed like a shadow in the Pacific.
He continued, "We speak of leading the free world. But we have not always acted like it. Bharat's freedom wasn't given—it was taken, and taken under this young man's leadership. That should give us pause, yes, but not fear."
"But Mr. President," interjected Senator Templeton, a conservative voice among them, "he's a mutant. A man with godlike powers. That alone is a threat to every notion of balance in international politics."
Roosevelt met his gaze steadily.
"And George Washington had the loyalty of a fledgling people. Lincoln had the strength to bind a broken nation. Were they threats too?"
The Senator said nothing.
"We may not understand his abilities," Roosevelt went on, "but we can respect the choices he's made. Aryan Rajvanshi didn't declare war. He didn't hoard power. He didn't break the world. He's building one—cleaner, smarter, stronger. That energy breakthrough alone… if real… could end our dependence on oil. It could change the world."
"Which is why we should be cautious," McAlister added. "Imagine that kind of power in the wrong hands."
"I am imagining it in the right ones," Roosevelt said simply.
A long pause.
He turned to his Secretary of State. "Draft a message to the Embassy in Ujjain. I want a diplomatic team to initiate quiet talks. No press. No pressuring. Just contact."
"And if he refuses?"
"Then we try again," Roosevelt said, his tone unwavering. "Because Bharat isn't some backwater colony anymore. It's a rising democratic power. We can't afford to push it toward Berlin or Tokyo out of arrogance or fear."
He leaned back.
"And because I believe in the future. And I think—" he smiled faintly, "—so does he."
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