But before Aeo could go looking for trouble with their so-called Oliver Queen, trouble found him first.
"Hm?" Aeo's powerful Super-hearing caught an ominous sound before he could see anything. His gaze sharpened, and he spotted a Sidewinder Missile hurtling toward him.
"Damn it!" Aeo had only enough time to curse under his breath before, with a boom, the missile struck his car dead-on.
"!"
Bruce was startled too. "What happened? Zod, do you copy?" But no matter how many times he called, Aeo didn't respond. At last, panic set in.
"Eiffel, locate Zod! Find out what happened to him!"
"Yes, sir," the Smart Terminal replied emotionlessly.
As Skynet took action, a U.S. military satellite was covertly hacked and turned toward Aeo's location.
"!"
"Damn it." Bruce leaped to his feet.
Meanwhile, being attacked out of nowhere had already made Aeo furious. He'd jumped out of the car just before the missile hit, but the expensive supercar he'd bought only half a day ago had been blown to pieces.
"You're all dead!" Aeo stared at the armed helicopters in the sky and the line of armored vehicles and other war machines approaching. His gray eyes glinted with a dangerous, icy light.
His attackers didn't care how angry he was. Seeing that he'd dodged the missile, they immediately fired several more at him!
"Having that much fun shooting at me?" Aeo's eyes flashed red, and two thick beams of Heat Vision struck the missiles first!
Boom. The missiles exploded in midair. Amid the flames, a figure shot through the sky.
"Evade! Evade!" the enemies aboard the helicopter shouted frantically. But it was too late. Enraged, Aeo relied on his Steel Body and smashed straight through the helicopter with a boom.
Szz. His powerful Heat Vision brought down another helicopter.
Boom. The helicopters crashed to the ground, becoming two great balls of fire.
Several armored vehicles braked hard and aimed at him first. "Rat-tat-tat!"
Unlike ordinary guns, the heavy-caliber autocannons mounted on the vehicles unleashed a deadly hail of bullets. They couldn't hurt Aeo, but their immense force still drove him backward through the air.
"Ah!"
Shielding his head with his arms, Aeo unleashed a massive beam of heat, flipping a Stryker wheeled combat vehicle onto its side.
"Keep firing! Don't stop!"
But Aeo dropped from the sky and, with a boom, tore another armored vehicle in half. Then he moved at super speed and slammed his shoulder into a third infantry fighting vehicle, flipping the several-ton machine over and over.
"Who are you people?!"
The only answer was an attack from another enemy unit.
"Second squad, move out! Second squad, move out!"
"Prepare the sonic weapons!"
Two special armored vehicles burst out from behind the others. Their two enormous sonic weapons began to hum, sending visible rings of rippling sound toward the boy.
Ugh. Unable to dodge in time, Aeo took the full blast. The deafening roar seemed to tear at his eardrums and brain, leaving his vision blurred.
"Turn up the power!" The enemy cheered at the sight.
"!"
Humm. The enormous shock wave forced Aeo to dig his hands into the ground to keep from being blown away.
"Enough!"
Fury surged through Aeo. A powerful energy spread through Fortier's cells. He raised his head, and a massive beam of Heat Vision slammed into one of the sonic vehicles, destroying it on the spot. The other one soon met the same fate, blown apart in an explosion.
Boom!
Two more balls of fire erupted.
But the enemy didn't give up. A third wave of attackers immediately followed. "Open fire!"
Dozens of special forces soldiers, led by a wild-haired warrior with a mechanical arm, fired at Aeo while advancing under cover.
Bang. Still dazed, Aeo was struck several times in quick succession.
Hiss! Aeo felt a sharp, searing pain—something the infantry fighting vehicles hadn't managed to cause. He quickly focused his eyes and realized that the soldiers were carrying energy weapons, and that they packed quite a punch. He hadn't expected that. Especially...
Aeo stared in surprise at the masked man with a mechanical arm. Wasn't that...
Bang, bang. While Aeo was distracted, he was hit several more times. At the same time, the enemy leader fired a grenade launcher at him, sending a round filled with knockout gas his way.
Ugh. The inhaled nerve agent made Aeo's legs buckle, and he dropped to one knee.
Even the enemy hadn't expected that. They cheered and intensified their attack. "Attack! Keep attacking!"
Rat-tat-tat. The autocannons on the remaining jeeps and all the soldiers on the ground poured fire at Aeo.
"You're all dead!" The nerve agent's effects passed as quickly as they came, and Aeo got back to his feet. With an enraged shout, he blasted a jeep with Heat Vision, then charged into the crowd and began slaughtering them.
"Die!" With his extraordinary strength and beams of heat, Aeo burned at least two dozen soldiers in half or shattered their bones. The enemy's attacks only went thump, thump against the boy. At last, the attackers lost their nerve and shouted, "Retreat! Fall back now!"
At the sound, the man with the mechanical arm pulled out a grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed it at Aeo's feet. Hm? In the heat of battle, Aeo didn't notice. With a boom, the blast hurled him several meters away.
"Go, go, go!" The enemy seized the opportunity and tried to escape.
Aeo shook his dizzy head. "Damn it. Whoever you are..."
He pushed off the ground and instantly caught up with the man with the mechanical arm. Without even looking, he swung a punch. "I'm going to kill you!"
The man didn't know when to quit. He actually tried to pit his mechanical arm against Aeo. With a bang, the arm was smashed to pieces, and the man was sent flying like a swatted fly.
"Hmph!" Aeo snorted, feeling a little better. But just then, two F-22s appeared in the distance.
"Target locked... Fire!"
Boom! Two Hellfire Missiles exploded.
Ugh. Even with his Steel Body, Aeo was shaken by humanity's weapons of war, his blood surging in his chest. He watched the F-22s streak past, somewhat surprised. Humanity's technology really did have its merits. At this stage, the flames and smoke from missiles might not do him any real harm, but a direct hit from a Hellfire was still no small threat.
Aeo grabbed the wreckage of an infantry fighting vehicle beside him and threw it skyward without even looking.
Whoosh. The F-22s braked hard. The wreckage, trailing a rush of wind and thunder, narrowly missed them, leaving them drenched in cold sweat. Then, with all their might, they fired two more Hellfire Missiles.
Boom. The enormous explosion and shock wave whipped Aeo's clothes about. After a while, once the smoke and flames had died down, Aeo realized that the enemy had all retreated.
"..."
Watching the F-22s flee into the distance, Aeo clenched his fist!
Hydra!
That's right. The familiar figure had reminded Aeo who had attacked him: a former member of the Howling Commandos, Captain America's best friend, the assassin Bucky Barnes! The man also known as the Winter Soldier.
But the Winter Soldier was one of Hydra's top enforcers. Shouldn't he have been brainwashed by Hydra after the war and sent to assassinate politicians and powerful figures around the world? Why was he here? Had his identity been exposed?
Right.
Aeo suddenly remembered that during the battle in Gotham City, S.H.I.E.L.D. had deployed a lot of soldiers. It was entirely possible that some of those soldiers had been Hydra's undercover agents. Given how thoroughly Hydra had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., that made perfect sense. But why had they mistaken Aeo for an enemy? Weren't they only trying to restore Hydra's terrifying rule over the world? Why had they attacked him first, before he'd shown them he was a threat? What did they stand to gain?
Aeo was baffled—and consumed with fury!
Before you continue